THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Kenneth  Maogowan 


By  Lady  Gregory 


Irish  Folk-History  Plays 

First  Series:    The  Tragedies 

Grania.     Kincora.      Dervorgilla 

Second  Series:    The  Tragic  Comedies 

The  Canavans.     The  White  Cockade.     The  Deliverer 

New  Comedies 

The   Bogie   Men.     The   Pull   Moon.     Coats.     Darner's 
Gold.      McDonough's  Wife 

Our  Irish  Theatre 

A  Chapter  of  Autobiography 


Our   Irish  Theatre 


A  Chapter  of  Autobiography 


By 

Lady  Gregory 


Illustrated 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  and  London 

Cbe    •fcnfchcrbocher     prcse 

1913 


COPYRIGHT.  1913 

BY 
LADY  GREGORY 


•Cbe  ftntcfcerbocfcer  prew,  Hew  IJotft 


College 
library 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  FACE 

I. — THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  MAKING    .         .  i  • 

II. — THE  BLESSING  OF  THE  GENERATIONS    .  50 

III. — PLAY-WRITING      .....  78 

IV. — THE  FIGHT  OVER  "  THE  PLAYBOY  "      .  109  • 

V. — SYNGE          .         .         .         .         .  119  • 
VI. — THE  FIGHT  WITH  THE  CASTLE      .         .140 

VII. — "THE  PLAYBOY"  IN  AMERICA      .         .  169. 

THE  BINDING 253 

APPENDICES 

APPENDIX  I. — PLAYS  PRODUCED  BY  THE  ABBEY 
THEATRE  Co.  AND  ITS  PREDECESSORS,  WITH 

DATES  OF  FIRST  PERFORMANCES       .         .  261 

APPENDIX  II. — "THE  NATION"  ON   "BLANCO 

POSNET"          ......  267 

APPENDIX  III. — "THE  PLAYBOY"  IN  AMERICA  280 

APPENDIX  IV. — IN  THE  EYES  OF  OUR  ENEMIES  306 

APPENDIX  V. — IN  THE  EYES  OF  OUR  FRIENDS  314 


111 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

LADY  GREGORY     ....     Frontispiece 
THE  ABBEY  THEATRE,  DUBLIN      ...       40 

From  a  photograph  by  Keogh  Bros.,  Ireland. 

Miss  SARA  ALLGOOD     .....      80 

From  a  drawing  by  Robert  Gregory. 

J.  M.  SYNGE 120 

From  a  drawing  by  Robert  Gregory  in  1904. 


Our  Irish  Theatre 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  MAKING 

To  Richard  Gregory. — Little  Grandson:  When  I 
go  into  the  garden  in  the  morning  to  find  you  a  nec- 
tarine or  tell  you  the  names  of  flowers,  Catalpa,  Love- 
lies-bleeding, Balsam,  Phlox,  you  ask  me  why  I 
cannot  stay  but  must  go  back  to  the  house,  and  when 
I  say  it  is  to  write  letters,  you  ask,  "What  for?" 
A  nd  when  winter  comes,  you  will  ask  me  why  I  must 
go  away  over  the  sea  instead  of  waiting  for  your 
Christmas  stocking  and  your  tree. 

The  other  day  I  was  sitting  outside  the  door,  where 
the  sweet-peas  grow,  with  an  old  man,  and  when  you 
came  and  called  me  he  got  up  to  go  away,  and  as  he 
wished  me  good-bye,  he  said:  "  They  were  telling  me 
you  are  going  to  America,  and  says  I,  '  Whatever  the 
Lady  does,  I  am  certain  she  is  doing  nothing  but 


2  Our  Irish  Theatre 

what  she  thinks  to  be  right'  And  that  the  Lord  may 
keep  you  safe  and  protect  you  from  the  power  of 
your  enemy.11 

Some  day  when  I  am  not  here  to  answer,  you  will 
maybe  ask,  "  What  were  they  for,  the  writing,  the 
journeys,  and  why  did  she  have  an  enemy?"  So 
I  will  put  down  the  story  now,  that  you  may  know 
all  about  it  bye  and  bye. 

Fourteen  or  fifteen  years  ago  I  still  wrote  from 
time  to  time  in  a  diary  I  used  to  keep  till  the 
sand  in  the  hour-glass  on  my  table  began  to  run 
so  fast  that  I  had  to  lay  by  the  book  as  well  as 
embroidery,  and  archaeology,  and  drying  lavender, 
and  visits  to  the  houses  of  friends. 

I  was  in  London  in  the  beginning  of  1898,  and 
•  I  find  written,  "Yeats  and  Sir  Alfred  Lyall  to  tea, 
Yeats  stayed  on.  He  is  very  full  of  playwriting. 
...  He  with  the  aid  of  Miss  Florence  Fair,  an 
actress  who  thinks  more  of  a  romantic  than  of  a 
paying  play,  is  very  keen  about  taking  or  building 
a  little  theatre  somewhere  in  the  suburbs  to 
produce  romantic  drama,  his  own  plays,  Edward 
Martyn's,  one  of  Bridges',  and  he  is  trying  to  stir 
up  Standish  O'Grady  and  Fiona  Macleod  to 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making          3 

write  some.  He  believes  there  will  be  a  reaction 
after  the  realism  of  Ibsen,  and  romance  will  have 
its  turn.  He  has  put  a  'great  deal  of  himself* 
into  his  own  play  The  Shadowy  Waters  and  rather 
startled  me  by  saying  about  half  his  characters 
have  eagles'  faces." 

Later  in  the  year  I  was  staying  for  a  few  days 
with  old  Count  de  Basterot,  at  Duras,  that  is 
beyond  Kinvara  and  beside  the  sea.  He  had  been 
my  husband's  warm  friend,  and  always  in  the 
summer  time  we  used  to  go  and- spend  at  least  one 
long  day  with  him, — we  two  at  first,  and  then 
later  I  went  with  my  son  and  the  boy  and  girl 
friends  of  his  childhood.  They  liked  to  go  out 
in  a  hooker  and  see  the  seals  showing  their  heads, 
or  to  paddle  delicately  among  the  jellyfish  on  the 
beach.  It  was  a  pleasant  place  to  pass  an  idle 
day.  The  garden  was  full  of  flowers.  Lavender 
and  carnations  grew  best,  and  there  were  roses 
also  and  apple  trees,  and  many  plums  ripened  on 
the  walls.  This  seemed  strange,  because  outside 
the  sheltered  garden  there  were  only  stone-strewn 
fields  and  rocks  and  bare  rock-built  hills  in  sight, 
and  the  bay  of  Galway,  over  which  fierce  storms 
blow  from  the  Atlantic.  The  Count  remembered 


4  Our  Irish  Theatre 

when  on  Garlic  Sunday  men  used  to  ride  races, 
naked,  on  unsaddled  horses  out  into  the  sea;  but 
that  wild  custom  had  long  been  done  away  with 
by  decree  of  the  priests.  Later  still,  when  Harrow 
and  Oxford  took  my  son  away  and  I  had  long 
spaces  of  time  alone,  I  would  sometimes  go  to 
Duras  to  spend  a  few  days. 

I  always  liked  to  talk  and  to  listen  to  the  Count. 
He  could  tell  me  about  French  books  and  French 
and  Italian  history  and  politics,  for  he  lived  but 
for  the  summer  months  in  Ireland  and  for  the 
rest  of  the  year  in  Paris  or  in  Rome.  Mr.  Arthur 
Symons  has  written  of  him  and  his  talks  of  race, — 
to  which  he  attributed  all  good  or  bad  habits  and 
politics — as  they  took  long  drives  ontheCampagna. 
M.  Paul  Bourget  came  more  than  once  to  stay  in 
this  Burren  district,  upon  which  he  bestowed  a 
witty  name,  "Le  Royaume  de  Pierre."  It  was 
to  M.  Bourget  that  on  his  way  to  the  modest  little 
house  and  small  estate,  the  Count's  old  steward 
and  servant  introduced  the  Atlantic,  when  on  the 
road  from  the  railway  station  at  Gort  its  waters 
first  come  in  sight:  Voila  la  mer  qui  baigne 
VAmerique  et  les  terres  de  Monsieur  le  Comte.  For 
he — the  steward — had  been  taken  by  his  master 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making  5 

on  visits  to  kinsmen  in  France  and  Italy — their 
names  are  recorded  in  that  sad,  pompous,  black- 
bordered  document  I  received  one  day  signed  by 
those  who  have  Vhonneur  de  vous  faire  part  de  la 
perte  douloureuse  qu'ils  viennent  d'eprouver  en  la 
personne  de  Florimond  Alfred  Jacques,  Comte  de 
Basterot,  Chevalier  de  Vordre  du  Saint  Sfpulcre, 
leur  cousin  germain  et  cousin  [who  died  at  Duras 
(Irlande)  September  15,  1904];  la  Marquise  de  la 
Tour  Maubourg,  le  Vicomte  et  la  Vicomtesse  de 
Bussy,  la  Baronne  d*  Acker  de  Montgaston,  le  Mar- 
quis et  la  Marquise  de  Courcival,  le  Comte  et  la 
Comtesse  Gromis  de  Trana,  la  Comtesse  Irene  d' 
Entreves,  and  so  on,  and  so  on.  I  do  not  know 
whether  the  bearers  of  these  high-sounding  names 
keep  him  in  their  memory — it  may  well  be  that 
they  do,  for  he  was  a  friend  not  easily  forgotten — 
but  I  know  there  is  many  a  prayer  still  said  on  the 
roads  between  Kinvara  and  Burren  and  Curran- 
roe  and  Ballinderreen  for  him  who  "never  was 
without  a  bag  of  money  to  give  in  charity,  and 
always  had  a  heart  for  the  poor." 

On  one  of  those  days  at  Duras  in  1898,  Mr. 
Edward  Martyn,  my  neighbour,  came  to  see  the 
Count,  bringing  with  him  Mr.  Yeats,  whom  I  did 


6  Our  Irish  Theatre 

not  then  know  very  well,  though  I  cared  for  his 
work  very  much  and  had  already,  through  his 
directions,  been  gathering  folk-lore.  They  had 
lunch  with  us,  but  it  was  a  wet  day,  and  we"cbuld 

"^•*-~-—  ,  _  _, IL .  >  ^    -*  "    '     "  '  -  --- -  *    r~  ii  *"         ''i    i 

not  go  out.  After  a  while  I  thought  the  Count 
wanted  to  talk  to  Mr.  Martyn  alone;  so  I  took 
Mr.  Yeats  to  the  office  where  the  steward  used 
to  come  to  talk, — less  about  business  I  think  than 
of  the  Land  War  or  the  state  of  the  country,  or  the 
last  year's  deaths  and  marriages  from  Kinvara  to 
the  headland  of  Aughanish.  We  sat  there  through 
that  wet  afternoon,  and  though  I  had  never  been 
at  all  interested  in  theatres;  our  talk  turned  on 
plays.  Mr.  Martyn  had  written  two,  The  Heather 
Field  and  Maeve.  They  had  been  offered  to 
London  managers,  and  now  he  thought  of  trying 
to  have  them  produced  in  Germany  where  there 
seemed  to  be  more  room  for  new  drama  than  in 

England.     I  said  it  was  a  pity  we  had  no  Irish 

— ••         -«_ ._    __      — — 

theatre  where  such  plays  could  be  given.  Mr. 
Yeats  said  that  had  always  been  a  dream  of  his, 
but  he  had  of  late  thought  it  an  impossible  one, 
for  it  could  not  at  first  pay  its  way,  and  there  was 
no  money  to  be  found  for  such  a  thing  in  Ireland. 
We  went  on  talking  about  it,  and  things  seemed 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making  7 

to  grow  possible  as  we  talked,  and  before  the  end 
of  the  afternoon  we  had  made  our  p]ajnL_  We  said 
we  would  collect  money,  or  rather  ask  to  have  a 
certain  sum  of  money  guaranteed.  We  would 
then  take  a  Dublin  theatre  and  give  a  performance 
of  Mr.  Martyn's  Heather  Field  and  one  of  Mr. 
Yeats's  own  plays,  The  Countess  Cathleen.  I 
offered  the  first  guarantee  of  £25. 

A  few  days  after  that  I  was  back  at  Coole,  and 
Mr.  Yeats  came  over  from  Mr.  Martyn's  home, 
Tillyra,  and  we  wrote  a  formal  letter  to  send  out. 
We  neither  of  us  write  a  very  clear  hand,  but  a 
friend  had  just  given  me  a  Remington  typewriter 
and  I  was  learning  to  use  it,  and  I  wrote  out  the 
letter  with  its  help.  That  typewriter  has  done 
a  great  deal  of  work  since  that  day,  making  it 
easy  for  the  printers  to  read  my  plays  and  transla- 
tions, and  Mr.  Yeats's  plays  and  essays,  and 
sometimes  his  poems.  I  have  used  it  also  for  the 
many,  many  hundreds  of  letters  that  have  had  to 
be  written  about  theatre  business  in  each  of  these 
last  fifteen  years.  It  has  gone  with  me  very 
often  up  and  down  to  Dublin  and  back  again,  and 
it  went  with  me  even  to  America  last  year  that 
I  might  write  my  letters  home.  And  while  I  am 


8  Our  Irish  Theatre 

writing  the  leaves  are  falling,  and  since  I  have 
written  those  last  words  on  its  keys,  she  who  had 
given  it  to  me  has  gone.  She  gave  me  also  the 
great  gift  of  her  friendship  through  more  than 
half  my  lifetime,  Enid,  Lady  Layard,  Ambassa- 
dress at  Constantinople  and  Madrid,  helper  of 
the  miserable  and  the  wounded  in  the  Turkish- 
Russian  war;  helper  of  the  sick  in  the  hospital  she 
founded  at  Venice,  friend  and  hostess  and  guest 
of  queens  in  England  and  Germany  and  Rome. 
She  was  her  husband's  good  helpmate  while  he 
lived — is  not  the  Cyprus  treaty  set  down  in  that 
clear  handwriting  I  shall  never  see  coming  here 
again?  And  widowed,  she  kept  his  name  in 
honour,  living  after  him  for  fifteen  years,  and 
herself  leaving  a  noble  memory  in  all  places  where 
she  had  stayed,  and  in  Venice  where  her  home 
was  and  where  she  died. 

Our  statement — it  seems  now  a  little  pompous — 
began: 

"We  propose  to  have  performed  in  Dublin, 
in  the  spring  of  every  year  certain  Celtic  and 
Irish  plays,  which  whatever  be  their  degree  of 
excellence  will  be  written  with  a  high  ambition, 
and  so  to  build  up  a  Celtic  and  Irish  school  of 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making          9 

dramatic  literature.  We  hope  to  find  in  Ireland 
an  uncormpted  and  imaginative  audience  trained 
to  listen  by  its  passion  for  oratory,  and  believe 
that  our  desire  to  bring  upon  the  stage  the  deeper 
thoughts  and  emotions  of  Ireland  will  ensure  for 
us  a  tolerant  welcome,  and  that  freedom  to 
experiment  which  is  not  found  in  theatres  of 
England,  and  without  which  no  new  movement  in 
art  or  literature  can  succeed.  We  will  show  that 
Ireland  is  not  the  home  of  buffoonery  and  of  easy 
sentiment,  as  it  has  been  represented,  but  the 
home  of  an  ancient  idealism.  We  are  confident 
of  the  support  of  all  Irish  people,  who  are  weary 
of  misrepresentation,  in  carrying  out  a  work  that 
is  outside  all  the  political  questions  that  divide  us." 
I  think  the  word  "Celtic"  was  put  in  for  the 
sake  of  Fiona  Macleod  whose  plays  however  we 
never  acted,  though  we  used  to  amuse  ourselves 
by  thinking  of  the  call  for  "author"  that  might 
follow  one,  and  the  possible  appearance  of  William 
Sharp  in  place  of  the  beautiful  woman  he  had  given 
her  out  to  be,  for  even  then  we  had  little  doubt 
they  were  one  and  the  same  person.  I  myself 
never  quite  understood  the  meaning  of  the  "Celtic 
Movement,"  which  we  were  said  to  belong  to. 


io  Our  Irish  Theatre 

When  I  was  asked  about  it,  I  used  to  say  it  was  a 
movement  meant  to  persuade  the  Scotch  to  begin 
buying  our  books,  while  we  continued  not  to  buy 
theirs. 

We  asked  for  a  guarantee  fund  o£_  £300  to 
make  the  experiment,  which  we  hoped  to  carry 
on  during  three  years.  The  first  person  I  wrote 
to  was  the  old  poet,  Aubrey  de  Vere.  He  answered 
very  kindly,  saying,  "Whatever  develops  the 
genius  of  Ireland,  must  in  the  most  effectual 
way  benefit  her;  and  in  Ireland's  genius  I  have 
long  been  a  strong  believer.  Circumstances  of 
very  various  sorts  have  hitherto  tended  much  to 
retard  the  development  of  that  genius;  but  it 
cannot  fail  to  make  itself  recognised  before  very 
long,  and  Ireland  will  have  cause  for  gratitude  to 
all  those  who  have  hastened  the  coming  of  that 
day." 

I  am  glad  we  had  this  letter,  carrying  as  it  were 
the  blessing  of  the  generation  passing  away  to 
that  which  was  taking  its  place.  He  was  the 
first  poet  I  had  ever  met  and  spoken  with;  he  had 
come  in  my  girlhood  to  a  neighbour's  house.  He 
was  so  gentle,  so  fragile,  he  seemed  to  have  been 
wafted  in  by  that  "wind  from  the  plains  of  Ath- 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making          1 1 

enry  "  of  which  he  wrote  in  one  of  his  most  charm- 
ing little  poems.  He  was  of  the  Lake  School,  and 
talked  of  Wordsworth,  and  I  think  it  was  as  a  sort 
of  courtesy  or  deference  to  him  that  I  determined 
to  finish  reading  The  Excursion,  which  though  a 
reader  of  poetry  it  had  failed  me,  as  we  say,  to 
get  through.  At  last  one  morning  I  climbed  up 
to  a  wide  wood,  Grobawn,  on  one  of  the  hillsides 
of  Slieve  Echtge,  determined  not  to  come  down 
again  until  I  had  honestly  read  every  line.  I 
think  I  saw  the  sun  set  behind  the  far-off  Conne- 
mara  hills  before  I  came  home,  exhausted  but 
triumphant !  I  have  a  charming  picture  of  Aubrey 
de  Vere  in  my  mind  as  I  last  saw  him,  at  a  garden 
party  in  London.  He  was  walking  about,  having 
on  his  arm,  in  the  old-world  style,  the  beautiful 
Lady  Somers,  lovely  to  the  last  as  in  Thackeray's 
day,  and  as  I  had  heard  of  her  from  many  of  that 
time,  and  as  she  had  been  painted  by  Watts. 

Some  gave  us  their  promise  with  enthusiasm 
but  some  from  good  will  only,  without  much  faith 
that  an  Irish  Theatre  would  ever  come  to  success. 
One  friend,  a  writer  of  historical  romance,  wrote: 
"  October  I5th.  I  enclose  a  cheque  for  £i,  but  con- 
fess it  is  more  as  a  proof  of  regard  for  you  than  of 


12  Our  Irish  Theatre 

belief  in  the  drama,  for  I  cannot  with  the  best  wish 
in  the  world  to  do  so,  feel  hopeful  on  that  subject. 
My  experience  has  been  that  any  attempt  at 
treating  Irish  history  is  a  fatal  handicap,  not  to 
say  absolute  bar,  to  anything  in  the  shape  of 
popularity,  and  I  cannot  see  how  any  drama  can 
flourish  which  is  not  to  some  degree  supported  by 
the  public,  as  it  is  even  more  dependent  on  it  than 
literature  is.  There  are  popular  Irish  dramatists, 
of  course,  and  very  popular  ones,  but  then  unhap- 
pily they  did  not  treat  of  Irish  subjects,  and  The 
School  for  Scandal  and  She  Stoops  to  Conquer 
would  hardly  come  under  your  category.  You 
will  think  me  very  discouraging,  but  I  cannot 
help  it,  and  I  am  also  afraid  that  putting  plays 
experimentally  on  the  boards  is  a  very  costly 
entertainment.  Where  will  they  be  acted  in  the 
first  instance?  And  has  any  stage  manager 
undertaken  to  produce  them?  Forgive  my  tire- 
someness ;  it  does  not  come  from  want  of  sympathy, 
only  from  a  little  want  of  hope,  the  result  of 
experience." 

"October  I9th.  I  seize  the  opportunity  of 
writing  again  as  I  am  afraid  you  will  have  thought 
I  wrote  such  an  unsympathetic  letter.  It  is  not, 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making         13 

believe  me,  that  I  would  not  give  anything  to  see 
Irish  literature  and  Irish  drama  taking  a  good 
place,  as  it  ought  to  do,  and  several  of  the  authors 
you  name  I  admire  extremely.  It  is  only  from 
the  practical  and  paying  point  of  view  that  I  feel 
it  to  be  rather  rash.  Plays  cost  more,  I  take  it, 
to  produce  than  novels,  and  one  would  feel  rather 
rash  if  one  brought  out  a  novel  at  one's  own  risk." 
I  think  the  only  actual  refusals  I  had  were 
from  three  members  of  the  Upper  House.  I  may 
give  their  words  as  types  of  the  discourage- 
ment we  have  often  met  with  from  friends: 
"I  need  not,  I  am  sure,  tell  you  how  gladly  I 
would  take  part  in  anything  for  the  honour  of 
Old  Ireland  and  especially  anything  of  the  kind  in 
which  you  feel  an  interest;  but  I  must  tell  you 
frankly  that  I  do  not  much  believe  in  the  move- 
ment about  which  you  have  written  to  me.  I 
have  no  sympathy,  you  will  be  horrified  to  hear, 
with  the  'London  Independent  Theatre,'  and  I 
am  sure  that  if  Ibsen  and  Co.  could  know  what  is 
in  my  mind,  they  would  regard  me  as  a  '  Philis- 
tine' of  the  coarsest  class!  Alas!  so  far  from 
wishing  to  see  the  Irish  characters  of  Charles 
Lever  supplanted  by  more  refined  types,  they  have 


14  Our  Irish  Theatre 

always  been  the  delight  of  my  heart,  and  there  is 
no  author  in  whose  healthy,  rollicking  company, 
even  nowadays,  I  spend  a  spare  hour  with  more 
thorough  enjoyment.  I  am  very  sorry  that  I 
cannot  agree  with  you  in  these  matters,  and  I  am 
irreclaimable;  but  all  the  same  I  remain  with 
many  pleasant  remembrances  and  good  wishes 
for  you  and  yours,  Yours  very  truly— 

Another,  the  late  Lord  Ashbourne,  wrote:  "I 
know  too  little  of  the  matter  or  the  practicability 
of  the  idea  to  be  able  to  give  my  name  to  your 
list,  but  I  shall  watch  the  experiment  with  in- 
terest and  be  glad  to  attend.  The  idea  is 
novel  and  curious,  and  how  far  it  is  capable  of 
realisation  I  am  not  at  all  in  a  position  to  judge. 
Some  of  the  names  you  mention  are  well  known 
in  literature  but  not  as  dramatists  or  playwriters, 
and  therefore  the  public  will  be  one  to  be  worked 
up  by  enthusiasm  and  love  of  country.  The 
existing  class  of  actors  will  not,  of  course,  be 
available,  and  the  existing  playgoers  are  satisfied 
with  their  present  attractions.  Whether  'houses' 
can  be  got  to  attend  the  new  plays,  founded  on 
new  ideas  and  played  by  new  actors,  no  one  can 
foretell." 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making          15 

One,  who  curiously  has  since  then  become  an 
almost  too  zealous  supporter  of  our  theatre,  says: 
"I  fear  I  am  not  sanguine  about  the  success  in  a 
pecuniary  way  of  a  'Celtic  Theatre,'  nor  am  I 
familiar  with  the  works,  dramatic  or  otherwise,  of 
Mr.  Yeats  or  of  Mr.  Martyn.  Therefore,  at  the 
risk  of  branding  myself  in  your  estimation  as  a 
hopeless  Saxon  and  Philistine,  I  regret  I  cannot  see 
my  way  to  giving  my  name  to  the  enterprise  or 
joining  in  the  guarantee."  On  the  other  hand, 
Professor  Mahaffy  says,  rather  unexpectedly,  writ- 
ing from  Trinity  College:  " I  am  ready  to  risk  £5 
for  your  scheme  and  hope  they  may  yet  play  their 
drama  in  Irish.  It  will  be  as  intelligible  to  the 
nation  as  Italian,  which  we  so  often  hear  upon  our 
stage." 

And  many  joined  who  had  seemed  too  far  apart 
to  join  in  any  scheme.  Mr.  William  Harpole 
Lecky  sent  a  promise  of  £5  instead  of  the  £i  I 
had  asked.  Lord  Dufferin,  Viceroy  of  India  and 
Canada,  Ambassador  at  Paris,  Constantinople, 
St.  Petersburg,  and  Rome,  not  only  promised  but 
sent  his  guarantee  in  advance.  I  returned  it 
later,  for  the  sums  guaranteed  were  never  called 
for,  Mr.  Martyn  very  generously  making  up  all 


1 6  Our  Irish  Theatre 

loss.  Miss  Jane  Barlow,  Miss  Emily  Lawless,  the 
Lord  Chancellor  of  Ireland  ("Peter  the  Packer  ' 
as  he  was  called  by  Nationalists),  John  O'Leary, 
Mr.  T.  M.  Healy,  Lord  and  Lady  Ardilaun,  the 
Duchess  of  St.  Albans,  Doctor  Douglas  Hyde,  the 
Rt.  Hon.  Horace  Plunkett,  Mr.  John  Dillon,  M.  P., 
all  joined.  Mr.  John  Redmond  supported  us,  and 
afterwards  wrote  me  a  letter  of  commendation 
with  leave  to  use  it.  Mr.  William  O'Brien  was 
another  supporter.  I  did  not  know  him  personally 
but  I  remember  one  day  long  ago  going  to  tea  at 
the  Speaker's  house,  after  I  had  heard  him  in  a 
debate,  and  saying  I  thought  him  the  most  stirring 
speaker  of  all  the  Irish  party;  and  I  was  amused 
when  my  gentle  and  dignified  hostess,  Mrs.  Peel, 
said,  "I  quite  agree  with  you.  When  I  hear 
William  O'Brien  make  a  speech,  I  feel  that  if  I 
were  an  Irishwoman,  I  should  like  to  go  and  break 
windows." 

Then  Mr.  Yeats  and  Mr.  Martyn  went  to 
Dublin  to  make  preparations,  but  the  way  was 
unexpectedly  blocked  by  the  impossibility  of 
getting  a  theatre.  The  only  Dublin  theatres, 
the  Gaiety,  the  Royal,  and  the  Queen's,  were 
engaged  far  ahead,  and  in  any  case  we  could  not 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making         17 

have  given  them  their  price.  Then  we  thought 
of  taking  a  hall  or  a  concert  room,  but  there  again 
we  met  with  disappointment.  We  found  there  was 
an  old  Act  in  existence,  passed  just  before  the 
Union,  putting  a  fine  of  £300  upon  any  one  who 
should  give  a  performance  for  money  in  any 
unlicensed  building.  As  the  three  large  theatres 
were  the  only  buildings  licensed,  a  claim  for  a 
special  license  would  have  to  be  argued  by  lawyers, 
charging  lawyers'  fees,  before  the  Privy  Council. 
We  found  that  even  amateurs  who  acted  for  chari- 
ties were  forced  to  take  one  of  the  licensed  theatres, 
so  leaving  but  little  profit  for  the  charity.  There 
were  suggestions  made  of  forming  a  society  like 
the  Stage  Society  in  London,  to  give  performances 
to  its  members  only,  but  this  would  not  have 
been  a  fit  beginning  for  the  National  Theatre  of 
our  dreams.  I  wrote  in  a  letter  at  that  time: 
"I  am  all  for  having  the  Act  repealed  or  a  Bill 
brought  in,  empowering  the  Municipality  to 
license  halls  when  desirable."  And  although  this 
was  looked  on  as  a  counsel  of  perfection,  it  was 
actually  done  within  the  year.  I  wrote  to  Mr. 
Lecky  for  advice  and  help,  and  he  told  me  there 
was  a  Bill  actually  going  through  the  House 


1 8  Our  Irish  Theatre 

of  Commons,  the  Local  Government  (Ireland)  Bill, 
in  which  he  thought  it  possible  a  Clause  might  be 
inserted  that  would  meet  our  case.  Mr.  John 
Redmond  and  Mr.  Dillon  promised  their  help; 
so  did  Mr.  T.  M.  Healy,  who  wrote  to  Mr.  Yeats: 
"I  am  acquainted  with  the  state  of  the  law  in 
Dublin  which  I  should  gladly  assist  to  alter  as 
proposed.  Whether  the  Government  are  equally 
well  disposed  may  be  doubted,  as  the  subject  is  a 
little  outside  their  Bill,  and  no  adequate  time 
exists  for  discussing  it  and  many  other  important 
questions.  They  will  come  up  about  midnight 
or  later  and  will  be  yawned  out  of  hearing  by  our 
masters." 

A  Clause  was  drawn  up  by  a  Nationalist  mem- 
ber, Mr.  Clancy,  but  in  July,  1898,  Mr.  Lecky  writes 
from  the  House  of  Commons:  "I  have  not  been 
forgetting  the  Celtic  Theatre  and  I  think  the 
enclosed  Clause,  which  the  Government  have 
brought  forward,  will  practically  meet  its  require- 
ments. The  Attorney-General  objected  to  Mr. 
Clancy's  Clause  as  too  wide  and  as  interfering 
with  existing  patent  rights,  but  promised  a  Clause 
authorising  amateur  acting.  I  wrote  to  him, 
however,  stating  the  Celtic  case,  and  urging  that 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making         19 

writers  should  be  able,  like  those  who  got  up  the 
Ibsen  plays  in  London,  to  get  regular  actors  to 
play  for  them,  and  I  think  this  Clause  will  allow 
it.  ...  After  Clause  59  insert  the  following 
Clause:  (i)  Notwithstanding  anything  in  the 
Act  of  Parliament  of  Ireland  of  the  twenty-sixth 
year  of  King  George  the  Third,  Chapter  fifty- 
seven,  intituled  an  Act  for  regulating  the  stage 
in  the  city  and  county  of  Dublin,  the  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant may  on  the  application  of  the  council  for 
the  county  of  Dublin  or  the  county  borough  of 
Dublin  grant  an  occasional  license  for  the  perform- 
ance of  any  stage  play  or  other  dramatic  enter- 
tainment in  any  theatre,  room,  or  building  where 
the  profits  arising  therefrom  are  to  be  applied  for 
charitable  purpose  or  in  aid  of  the  funds  of  any 
society  instituted  for  the  purpose  of  science, 
literature,  or  the  fine  arts  exclusively.  (2)  The 
license  may  contain  such  conditions  and  regula- 
tions as  appear  fit  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  and 
may  be  revoked  by  him." 

This  Clause  was  passed  but  we  are  independent 
now  of  it, — the  Abbey  Theatre  holds  its  own 
Patent.  But  the  many  amateur  societies  which 
play  so  often  here  and  there  in  Dublin  may  well 


\ 


20  Our  Irish  Theatre 

call  for  a  blessing  sometimes  on  the  names  of 
those  by  whom  their  charter  was  won. 

We  announced  our  first  performance  for  May 
8, 1899,  nearly  a  year  after  that  talk  on  the  Galway 
coast,  at  the  Ancient  Concert  Rooms.  Mr.  Yeats' 
Countess  Cathleen  and  Mr.  Martyn's  Heather  Field 
were  the  plays  chosen,  as  we  had  planned  at  the 
first.  Mr.  George  Moore  gave  excellent  help  in 
finding  actors,  and  the  plays  were  rehearsed  in 
London.  But  then  something  unexpected  hap- 
pened. A  writer  who  had  a  political  quarrel  with 
Mr.  Yeats  sent  out  a  pamphlet  in  which  he  at- 
tacked The  Countess  Cathleen,  on  the  ground  of 
religious  unorthodoxy.  The  plot  of  the  play, 
taken  from  an  old  legend,  is  this:  during  a  famine 
in  Ireland  some  starving  country  people,  having 
been  tempted  by  demons  dressed  as  merchants  to 
sell  their  souls  for  money  that  their  bodies  may  be 
saved  from  perishing,  the  Countess  Cathleen  sells 
her  own  soul  to  redeem  theirs,  and  dies.  The 
accusation  made  was  that  it  was  a  libel  on  the 
people  of  Ireland  to  say  they  could  under  any 
circumstances  consent  to  sell  their  souls  and  that 
it  was  a  libel  on  the  demons  that  they  counted 
the  soul  of  a  countess  of  more  worth  than  those 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making         21 

of  the  poor.  At  Cathleen's  death  the  play  tells 
us,  "God  looks  on  the  intention,  not  the  deed," 
and  so  she  is  forgiven  at  the  last  and  taken  into 
Heaven ;  and  this  it  was  said  is  against  the  teaching 
of  the  Church. 

Mr.  Martyn  is  an  orthodox  Catholic,  and  to 
quiet  his  mind,  the  play  was  submitted  to  two 
good  Churchmen.  Neither  found  heresy  enough 
in  it  to  call  for  its  withdrawal.  One  of  them,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Barry,  the  author  of  The  New  Antigone, 
wrote: 

"BRIDGE  HOUSE,  WALLINGFORD, 
"March  26,  1899." 

"DEAR  MR.  YEATS, 

"I  read  your  Countess  Cathleen  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible after  seeing  you.  It  is  beautiful  and  touching. 
I  hope  you  will  not  be  kept  back  from  giving  it 
by  foolish  talk.  Obviously,  from  the  literal  point 
of  view  theologians,  Catholic  or  other,  would 
object  that  no  one  is  free  to  sell  his  soul  in  order 
to  buy  bread  even  for  the  starving.  But  St.  Paul 
says,  'I  wish  to  be  anathema  for  my  brethren'; 
which  is  another  way  of  expressing  what  you  have 
put  into  a  story.  I  would  give  the  play  first  and 
explanations  afterwards. 


22  Our  Irish  Theatre 

"Sometime  perhaps  you  will  come  and  spend 
a  night  here  and  I  shall  be  charmed.  But  don't 
take  a  superfluous  journey  now.  It  is  an  awkward 
place  to  get  at.  I  could  only  tell  you,  as  I  am 
doing,  that  if  people  will  not  read  or  look  at  a  play 
of  this  kind  in  the  spirit  which  dictated  it,  no 
change  you  might  make  would  satisfy  them. 
You  have  given  us  what  is  really  an  Auto,  in  the 
manner  of  Calderon,  with  the  old  Irish  folk-lore 
as  a  perceptive ;  and  to  measure  it  by  the  iron  rule 
of  experts  and  schoolmen  would  be  most  unfair 
to  it.  Some  one  else  will  say  that  you  have 
learned  from  the  Jesuits  to  make  the  end  justify 
the  means — and  much  that  man  will  know  of 
you  or  the  Jesuits.  With  many  kind  wishes  for 
your  success,  and  fraternal  greetings  in  the  name 
of  Ireland, 

"Ever  yours, 

"WILLIAM  BARRY." 

So  our  preparations  went  on.  Mr.  Yeats 
wrote  a  little  time  before  the  first  performance: 
"Everybody  tells  me  we  are  going  to  have  good 
audiences.  My  play,  too,  in  acting  goes  wonder- 
fully well.  The  actors  are  all  pretty  sound. 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making         23 

The  first  Demon  is  a  little  over- violent  and  restless 
but  he  will  improve.  Lionel  Johnson  has  done 
a  prologue  which  I  enclose." 

That  prologue,  written  by  so  Catholic  and 
orthodox  a  poet,  was  spoken  before  the  plays 
at  the  Ancient  Concert  Rooms  on  May  8, 
1899: 

The  May  fire  once  on  every  dreaming  hill 
All  the  fair  land  with  burning  bloom  would  fill ; 
All  the  fair  land,  at  visionary  night, 
Gave  loving  glory  to  the  Lord  of  Light. 
Have  we  no  leaping  flames  of  Beltaine  praise 
To  kindle  in  the  joyous  ancient  ways ; 
No  fire  of  song,  of  vision,  of  white  dream, 
Fit  for  the  Master  of  the  Heavenly  Gleam ; 
For  him  who  first  made  Ireland  move  in  chime, 
Musical  from  the  misty  dawn  of  time? 

Ah,  yes;  for  sacrifice  this  night  we  bring 

The  passion  of  a  lost  soul's  triumphing; 

All  rich  with  faery  airs  that,  wandering  long, 

Uncaught,  here  gather  into  Irish  song; 

Sweet  as  the  old  remembering  winds  that  wail, 

From  hill  to  hill  of  gracious  Inisfail; 

Sad  as  the  unforgctting  winds  that  pass 

Over  her  children  in  her  holy  grass 

At  home,  and  sleeping  well  upon  her  breast, 

Where  snowy  Dcirdre  and  her  sorrows  rest. 


24  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Come,  then,  and  keep  with  us  an  Irish  feast, 
Wherein  the  Lord  of  Light  and  Song  is  priest; 
Now,  at  this  opening  of  the  gentle  May, 
Watch  warring  passions  at  their  storm  and  play; 
Wrought  with  the  flaming  ecstasy  of  art, 
Sprung  from  the  dreaming  of  an  Irish  heart. 

But  alas!  His  call  to  "watch  warring  passions 
at  their  storm  and  play,"  was  no  vain  one.  The 
pamphlet,  Souls  for  Gold,  had  been  sent  about, 
and  sentences  spoken  by  the  demons  in  the  play 
and  given  detached  from  it  were  quoted  as  Mr. 
Yeats'  own  unholy  beliefs.  A  Cardinal  who 
confessed  he  had  read  none  of  the  play  outside 
these  sentences  condemned  it.  Young  men  from 
the  Catholic  University  were  roused  to  come  and 
make  a  protest  against  this  "insult  to  their  faith." 
There  was  hooting  and  booing  in  the  gallery.  In 
the  end  the  gallery  was  lined  with  police,  for  an 
attack  on  the  actors  was  feared.  They,  being 
English  and  ignorant  of  Ireland,  found  it  hard  to 
understand  the  excitement,  but  they  went  through 
their  parts  very  well.  There  was  enthusiasm  for 
both  plays,  and  after  the  first  night  London  critics 
were  sent  over,  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm  among  them, 
and  gave  a  good  report.  Yet  it  was  a  stormy 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        25 

beginning  for  our  enterprise,  and  a  rough  recep- 
tion for  a  poetic  play.  The  only  moment,  I 
think,  at  which  I  saw  Mr.  Yeats  really  angry  was 
at  the  last  performance.  I  was  sitting  next  him, 
and  the  play  had  reached  the  point  where  the 
stage  direction  says,  "The  Second  Merchant  goes 
out  through  the  door  and  returns  with  the  hen 
strangled.  He  flings  it  on  the  floor."  The  mer- 
chant came  in  indeed,  but  without  the  strangled  . 
hen.  Mr.  Yeats  got  up,  filled  with  suspicions 
that  it  also  might  have  been  objected  to  on  some 
unknown  ground,  and  went  round  to  the  back  of 
the  stage.  But  he  was  given  a  simple  explanation. 
The  chief  Demon  said  he  had  been  given  charge 
of  the  hen,  and  had  hung  it  out  of  a  window 
every  night,  "And  this  morning,"  he  said,  "when 
I  pulled  up  the  string,  there  was  nothing  on  it 
at  all." 

But  that  battle  was  not  a  very  real  one.  We 
have  put  on  Countess  Cathleen  a  good  many  times 
of  late  with  no  one  speaking  against  it  at  all. 
And  some  of  those  young  men  who  hissed  it  then 
are  our  good  supporters  now. 

The  next  year  English  actors  were  again  brought 
over  to  play,  this  time  in  the  Gaiety  Theatre.  A 


26  Our  Irish  Theatre 

little  play  by  Miss  Milligan,  The  Last  Feast  of  the 
Fianna  was  given,  and  Mr.  Martyn's  Maeve,  and 
on  alternate  nights  The  Bending  of  the  Bough, 
founded  by  Mr.  George  Moore  on  Mr.  Martyn's 
Tale  of  a  Town.  They  were  produced  on  the 
evening  of  February  20,  1900.  "On  the  evening 
before  the  production,"  I  wrote,  "Mr.  Yeats  gave 
a  little  address  on  the  play,  Maeve,  in  which 
he  said  there  is  a  wonderful  literary  invention, 
that  of  Peg  Inerny,  the  old  woman  in  rags  in 
the  daytime,  but  living  another  and  second  life, 
a  queen  in  the  ideal  world,  a  symbol  of  Ireland. 
The  financial  question  touched  in  The  Bending  of 
the  Bough  was  chosen,  because  on  it  all  parties  are 
united,  but  it  means  really  the  cause  nearest  to 
each  of  our  hearts.  The  materialism  of  England 
and  its  vulgarity  are  surging  up  about  us.  It  is 
not  Shakespeare  England  sends  us,  but  musical 
farces,  not  Keats  and  Shelley,  but  Titbits.  A 
mystic  friend  of  his  had  a  dream  in  which  he  saw 
a  candle  whose  flame  was  in  danger  of  being  extin- 
guished by  a  rolling  sea.  The  waves  sometimes 
seemed  to  go  over  it  and  quench  it,  and  he  knew  it 
to  be  his  own  soul  and  that  if  it  was  quenched,  he 
would  have  lost  his  soul.  And  now  our  ideal 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making         27 

life  is  in  danger  from   the  sea  of  commonness 
about  us." 

The  Bending  of  the  Bough  was  the  first  play 
dealing  with  a  vital  Irish  question  that  had  ap- 
peared in  Ireland.  There  was  a  great  deal  of 
excitement  over  it.  My  diary  says:  "M.  is  in 
great  enthusiasm  over  it,  says  it  will  cause  a  revo- 
lution. H.  says  no  young  man  can  see  that  play 
and  leave  the  house  as  he  came  into  it.  ...  The 
Gaelic  League  in  great  force  sang  Fainne  Geal  an 
Lae  between  the  acts,  and  The  Wearing  of  the  Green 
in  Irish!  And  when  'author'  could  not  appear, 
there  were  cries  of  'An  Craoibhin,'  and  cheers 
were  given  for  Hyde.  The  actors  say  they  never 
played  to  so  appreciative  an  audience,  but  were 
a  little  puzzled  at  the  applause,  not  understanding 
the  political  allusions.  The  play  hits  so  impar- 
tially all  round  that  no  one  is  really  offended, 
certainly  not  the  Nationalists  and  we  have  not 
heard  that  Unionists  are  either.  Curiously, 
Maeve,  which  we  did  n't  think  a  Nationalist  play 
at  all,  has  turned  out  to  be  one,  the  audience 
understanding  and  applauding  the  allegory. 
There  is  such  applause  at '  I  am  only  an  old  woman, 
but  I  tell  you  that  Erin  will  never  be  subdued '  that 


28  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Lady ,  who  was  at  a  performance,  reported 

to  the  Castle  that  they  had  better  boycott  it, 
which  they  have  done.  G.  M.  is,  I  think,  a  little 
puzzled  by  his  present  political  position,  but  I 
tell  him  and  E.  Martyn  we  are  not  working  for 
Home  Rule;  we  are  preparing  for  it." 

In  our  third  year,  1901,  Mr.  F.  R.  Benson  took 
our  burden  on  his  shoulders  and  gave  a  fine  per- 
formance of  Diarmuid  and  Crania,  an  heroic  play 
by  Mr.  George  Moore  and  Mr.  Yeats.  I  wrote: 
"I  am  so  glad  to  hear  of  Benson's  appreciation. 
Anyhow,  he  can  hardly  be  supposed  to  be  on  the 
side  of  incendiarism;  he  is  so  very  respectable. 
Trinity  College  won't  know  whether  to  go  or  to 
stay  away."  Mr.  Yeats  wrote:  "Yesterday  we 
were  rehearsing  at  the  Gaiety.  The  kid  Benson 
is  to  carry  in  his  arms  was  wandering  in  and  out 
among  the  stage  properties.  I  was  saying  to 
myself,  'Here  are  we,  a  lot  of  intelligent  people  who 
might  have  been  doing  some  sort  of  decent  work 
that  leaves  the  soul  free;  yet  here  we  are,  going 
through  all  sorts  of  trouble  and  annoyance  for  a 
mob  that  knows  neither  literature  nor  art.  I  might 
have  been  away,  away  in  the  country,  in  Italy 
perhaps,  writing  poems  for  my  equals  and  my 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        29 

betters.  That  kid  is  the  only  sensible  creature 
on  the  stage.  He  knows  his  business  and  keeps 
to  it.'  At  that  very  moment  one  of  the  actors 
called  out,  '  Look  at  the  kid,  eating  the  property 
ivy!'  " 

This  time  also  we  produced  Casad-an-Sugan,  «-- 
(The  Twisting  of  the  Rope)  by  the  founder  of  the 
Gaelic  League,  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde.  He  himself 
acted  the  chief  part  in  it  and  even  to  those  who 
had  no  Irish,  the  performance  was  a  delight,  it  was 
played  with  so  much  gaiety,  ease,  and  charm.  It 
was  the  first  time  a  play  written  in  Irish  had  ever 
been  see  in  a  Dublin  theatre. 

Our  three  years'  experiment  had  ended,  and  we  v 
hesitated  what  to  do  next.  But  a  breaking  and 
rebuilding  is  often  for  the  best,  and  so  it  was  now. 
We  had  up  to  this  time,  as  I  have  said,  played  only 
once  a  year,  and  had  engaged  actors  from  London, 
some  of  them  Irish  certainly,  but  all  London- 
trained.  The  time  had  come  to  play  oftener  and 
to  train  actors  of  our  own.  For  Mr.  Yeats  had 
never  ceased  attacking  the  methods  of  the  ordinary 
theatre,  in  gesture,  in  staging,  and  in  the  speaking 
of  verse.  It  happened  there  were  two  brothers 
living  in  Dublin,  William  and  Frank  Fay,  who 


30  Our  Irish  Theatre 

had  been  in  the  habit  of  playing  little  farces  in 
coffee  palaces  and  such  like  in  their  spare  time. 
William  had  a  genius  for  comedy,  Frank's  ambi- 
tions were  for  the  production  of  verse.  They, 
or  one  of  them,  had  thought  of  looking  for  work 
in  America,  but  had  seen  our  performances,  and 
thought  something  might  be  done  in  the  way  of 
creating  a  school  of  acting  in  Ireland.  They 
came  to  us  at  this  time  and  talked  matters  over. 
They  had  work  to  do  in  the  daytime  and  could 
only  rehearse  at  night.  The  result  was  that  Mr. 
Yeats  gave  his  Kathleen  ni  Houlihan  to  be  pro- 
duced by  Mr.  Fay  at  the  same  time  as  a  play  by 
Mr.  George  Russell  (A.E.),  in  St.  Theresa's  Hall, 
Clarendon  Street.  I  had  written  to  Mr.  Yeats: 
"  If  all  breaks  up,  we  must  try  and  settle  something 
with  Fay,  possibly  a  week  of  the  little  plays  he 
has  been  doing  through  the  spring.  I  have  a 
sketch  in  my  head  that  might  do  for  Hyde  to 
work  on.  I  will  see  if  it  is  too  slight  when  I  have 
noted  it  down,  and  if  not,  will  send  it  to  you." 

Early,  in  1902,  Mr.  Russell  wrote  to  me:  "I 
have  finished  Deirdre  at  last.  Heaven  be  praised ! 
in  the  intervals  of  railway  journeys,  and  the  Fays 
are  going  to  do  their  best  with  it.  I  hope  I  shall 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        31 

not  suffer  too  much  in  the  process,  but  I  prefer 
them  to  English  actors  as  they  are  in  love  with 
their  story."  A  little  hall  in  Camden  Street  was 
hired  for  rehearsal,  Mr.  Russell  writing  in  the 
same  year:  "I  will  hand  cheque  to  Fay.  I  know 
it  will  be  a  great  assistance  to  them  as  the  little 
hall  will  require  alterations  and  fittings  and  as 
none  of  the  Company  are  in  possession  of  more 
than  artisan's  wages.  They  have  elected  W.  B.  Y. 
as  president  of  the  Irish  National  Dramatic 
Society,  and  A.  E.  as  vice-president,  and  we  are 
the  gilding  at  the  prow  of  the  vessel.  They  have 
begun  work  already  and  are  reading  and  rehears- 
ing drama  for  the  autumn." 

Mr.  Fay  was  very  hopeful  and  full  of  courage. 
He  wrote  in  December,  1902:  "I  have  received 
your  letter  and  parcel.  I  am  not  doing  this  show 
on  a  large  scale  as  I  am  leaving  The  Hour-glass  off 
till  the  middle  of  January.  ...  I  am  just  giving 
a  show  of  The  Pot  of  Broth,  The  Foundations,  and 
Elis  and  the  Beggarman,  and  I  'm  not  making  a 
fuss  about  it,  as  I  want  to  try  how  many  people 
the  hall  will  hold,  and  what  prices  suit  best,  so  it 
is  more  or  less  an  experimental  show  and  then, 
about  the  middle  of  January,  I  will  do  the  first 


32  Our  Irish  Theatre 

real  show  with  The  Hour-glass  as  principal  feature. 
The  hall  took  a  great  deal  of  work  to  get  right, 
and  as  we  had  to  do  all  the  work  ourselves,  we 
had  very  little  time  to  rehearse."  And  he  says 
later :  "I  received  your  kind  note,  also  enclosures, 
for  which  we  are  very  much  obliged.  We  are 
indeed  getting  into  very  flourishing  conditions, 
and  if  things  only  continue  in  the  present  state, 
I  have  no  doubt  we  shall  be  able  to  show  a  fairly 
good  balance  at  the  end  of  the  year.  I  have  all 
but  concluded  an  arrangement  with  a  branch  of  the 
Gaelic  League  to  take  our  hall  for  three  nights  a 
week,  and  that  will  leave  us  under  very  small 
rental  if  it  comes  off.  About  the  performance 
and  how  it  worked  out.  I  spent  twenty-five 
shillings  on  printing,  etc.,  and  we  to9k  altogether 
about  four  pounds  fifteen  shillings,  so  I  see  no 
reason  to  complain  financially.  But  I  find  the 
stage  very  small,  and  the  want  of  dressing-rooms 
makes  it  very  difficult  to  manage  about  the  scenery, 
as  all  your  actors  have  to  stand  against  the  walls 
while  it  is  being  changed.  I  think,  however,  we 
can  struggle  through  if  we  don't  attempt  very 
large  pieces.  The  hall  was  rather  cold,  but  I 
think  I  can  manage  a  stove  and  get  over  that." 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        33 

That  show  of  The  Hour-glass  went  well,  and  in 
that  year — 1903 — two  of  Mr.  Yeats's  verse  plays 
were  produced,  The  King's  Threshold  and  Shadowy 
Waters.  In  that  year  also,  new  names  came  in, 
my  own  with  Twenty-five,  Mr.  Padraic  Colum's 
with  Broken  Soil,  and  that  of  J.  M.  Synge  with 
The  Shadow  of  the  Glen.  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Yeats, 
who  was  then  in  America:  "  After  Shadow  of  the 
Glen  your  sisters  and  Synge  came  in  and  had  some 
supper  with  me.  Your  sister  had  asked  one  of 
her  work  girls  how  she  liked  Synge's  comedy,  and 
she  said,  'Oh,  very  well.  I  had  been  thinking 
of  writing  a  story  on  that  subject  myself. '  They 
asked  quite  a  little  girl  if  she  thought  the  girl  in 
Colum's  play  ought  to  have  stayed  with  her  lover 
or  gone  with  her  father.  'She  was  right  to  go 
with  her  father.'  'Why?'  'Because  her  young 
man  had  such  a  big  beard.'  '  But  he  might  have 
cut  it  off.'  '  That  would  be  no  good.  He  was  so 
dark  he  would  look  blue  if  he  did  that. '  Saturday 
night  brought  a  larger  audience  and  all  went  well. 
The  few  I  knew,  Harvey,  etc.,  were  quite  aston- 
ished at  the  beauty  of  Shadowy  Waters,  and  some 
giggling  young  men  behind  were  hushed  almost 
at  once,  and  I  heard  them  saying  afterwards  how 


34  Our  Irish  Theatre 

beautiful  it  was.  I  should  like  to  hear  it  once  a 
week  through  the  whole  year.  The  only  vexing 
part  was  Aibric's  helmet,  which  has  immense 
horns.  A  black  shadow  of  these  was  thrown  down, 
and  when  Aibric  moved,  one  got  the  impression 
there  was  a  he-goat  going  to  butt  at  him  over  the 
side  of  the  ship. ' '  And  again  from  Coole :  ' '  Synge 
wrote  asking  me  if  I  could  provide  four  red  petti- 
coats, Aran  men's  caps,  a  spinning-wheel,  and 
some  Connacht  person  in  Dublin  who  will  teach 
the  players  to  keen.  The  last  item  is  the  most 
difficult.  All  the  actors  want  pampooties  (the 
cowskin  shoes  worn  by  the  Aran  people) ,  though  I 
warned  them  the  smell  is  rather  overpowering. 
Tell  Mr.  Quinn  what  a  great  comfort  his  money 
is  for  such  things  as  these,  upon  which  the  com- 
pany might  think  they  ought  not  to  spend  their 
little  capital,  and  Synge  would  have  been  un- 
happy without."  Through  the  nuns  at  Gort  I 
heard  of  a  spinning-wheel  in  a  cottage  some  way 
off,  which,  though  it  had  been  in  her  family  over 
a  hundred  years,  the  owner  wanted  to  sell.  A 
cart  was  sent  for  this,  and  we  have  had  it  in  the 
theatre  ever  since.  As  to  the  keening  I  found  a 
Galway  woman  near  Dublin  who  promised  to 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        35 

teach  the  actors.  But  when  they  arrived  at  her 
house,  she  found  herself  unable  to  raise  the  keen 
in  her  living  room.  They  had  all  to  go  upstairs, 
and  the  secretary  of  the  company  had  to  lie 
under  a  sheet  as  the  corpse.  The  lessons  were 
very  successful,  and  at  the  first  performance  in 
London  of  Riders  to  the  Sea,  the  pit  went  away 
keening  down  the  street. 

Mr.  Yeats  said  of  Mr.  Fay  and  his  little  com- 
pany, "They  did  what  amateurs  seldom  do, 
worked  desperately."  This  was  the  beginning 
of  a  native  school  of  acting,  an  Irish  dramatic 
company. 

I  remember,  in  1897,  hearing  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw 
make  a  speech  before  the  Irish  Literary  Society 
in  London,  following  a  lecture  on  "  Irish  Actors  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century."  He  very  wittily  extin- 
guished the  lecturer,  who,  he  said,  truly  enough 
had  enumerated  the  best  actors  and  actresses 
and  then  had  gone  on  to  say  they  were  not  Irish. 
"As  to  what  an  Irishman  is,"  he  said,  "is  a  complex 
question,  for  wherever  he  may  have  been  born, 
if  he  has  been  brought  up  in  Ireland,  that  is 
quite  sufficient  to  make  him  an  Irishman.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  think  an  Irishman  has  not  common 


36  Our  Irish  Theatre 

sense.  It  is  the  Englishman  who  is  devoid  of 
common  sense  or  at  least  has  so  small  a  portion  of 
it  that  he  can  only  apply  it  to  the  work  immediately 
before  him.  That  is  why  he  is  obliged  to  fill  the 
rest  of  his  horizon  with  the  humbugs  and  hypocrisy 
that  fill  so  large  a  part  of  English  life.  The 
Irishman  has  a  better  grasp  of  facts  and  sees  them 
more  clearly;  only  he  fails  in  putting  them  into 
practice,  and  has  a  great  objection  to  doing  any- 
thing that  will  lead  to  any  practical  result.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  think  the  Irishman  has  feeling;  he 
has  not;  but  the  Englishman  is  full  of  feeling. 
What  the  Irishman  has  is  imagination;  he  can 
imagine  himself  in  the  situation  of  others."  Then 
as  if  afraid  of  making  the  Irish  members  of  his 
audience  too  well  pleased  with  themselves,  he 
gave  his  summing  up:  "But  the  Irish  language 
is  an  effete  language  and  the  nation  is  effete,  and 
as  to  saying  there  are  good  Irish  actors,  there  are 
not,  and  there  won't  be  until  the  conditions  in 
Ireland  are  favourable  for  the  production  of  drama, 
and  when  that  day  comes,  I  hope  I  may  be  dead." 
I  am  glad  we  have  shown  Mr.  Shaw  that  he  can 
be  in  the  wrong,  and  I  am  glad  he  is  not  dead,  for 
he  has  been  a  good  friend  to  us.  But  our  players 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making         37 

have  proved  that  even  the  wise  may  be  deceived. 
They  have  won  much  praise  for  themselves  and 
have  raised  the  dignity  of  Ireland,  and  I  for  one 
owe  them  very  grateful  thanks  for  the  way  they 
have  made  the  characters  in  my  comedies  laugh 
and  live. 

In  May,  1903,  the  Irish  National  Theatre 
Society  went  for  the  first  time  to  Condon.  It  was 
hard  for  the  actors  to  get  away.  They  had  their 
own  work  to  do.  But  they  asked  their  employers 
a  for  whole  Saturday  holiday.  They  left  Dublin 
on  Friday  night,  arrived  in  London  on  the  Saturday 
morning,  played  in  the  afternoon,  and  again  in 
the  evening  at  the  Queen's  Gate  Hall,  and  were 
back  at  work  in  Dublin  on  Monday  morning. 
The  plays  taken  were:  Mr.  Fred  Ryan's  Laying 
the  Foundations,  Mr.  Yeats's  Hour-glass,  Pot  of 
Broth,  and  Kathleen  in  Houlihan,  and  my  own 
Twenty-five.  I  was  not  able  to  go  but  Mr. 
Yeats  wrote  tome:  "London,  May  4,  '03.  The 
plays  were  a  great  success.  I  never  saw  a  more 
enthusiastic  audience.  I  send  you  some  papers, 
all  that  I  have  found  notices  in.  When  I  remem- 
ber the  notices  I  have  seen  of  literary  adventures 
on  the  stage,  I  think  them  better  than  we  could 


38  Our  Irish  Theatre 

have  hoped.  ...  I  have  noticed  that  the  young 
men,  the  men  of  my  own  generation  or  younger, 
are  the  people  who  like  us.  It  was  a  very  distin- 
guished audience.  Blunt  was  there,  but  went 
after  your  play  as  he  is  just  recovering  from  influ- 
enza and  seems  to  be  really  ill.  I  thought  your 
play  went  very  well.  Fay  was  charming  as 
Christy.  The  game  of  cards  is  still  the  weak 
place,  but  with  all  defects,  the  little  play  has  a 
real  charm.  If  we  could  amend  the  cards  it 
would  be  a  strong  play  too.  Lady  Aberdeen, 
Henry  James,  Michael  Field — who  has  sent  me 
an  enthusiastic  letter  about  the  acting — Mrs. 
Wyndham — the  Chief  Secretary's  mother — Lord 
Monteagle,  Mrs.  Thackeray  Ritchie,  and  I  don't 
know  how  many  other  notables  were  there,  and 
all  I  think  were  moved.  The  evening  audience 
was  the  more  Irish  and  Kathleen  and  The  Pot  of 
Broth  got  a  great  reception.  The  Foundations 
went  well,  indeed  everything  went  well." 

This  was  but  the  first  of  several  London  visits, 
and  the  good  audience  and  good  notices  were  a 
great  encouragement.  And  this  visit  led  also 
to  the  generous  help  given  us  by  Miss  Horniman. 
She  took  what  had  been  the  old  Mechanics'  Insti- 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        39 

tute  in  Abbey  Street,  Dublin,  adding  to  it  a  part 
of  the  site  of  the  old  Morgue,  and  by  rebuilding 
and  reconstructing  turned  it  into  what  has  since 
been  known  as  the  Abbey  Theatre,  giving  us  the 
free  use  of  it  together  with  an  annual  subsidy  for 
a  term  of  years. 

Miss  Horniman  did  all  this,  as  she  says  in  a 
former  letter  to  Mr.  Yeats,  because  of  her  "great 
sympathy  with  the  artistic  and  dramatic  aims  of 
the  Irish  National  Theatre  Company  as  publicly 
explained  by  you  on  various  occasions."  She 
also  states  in  that  letter:  "I  can  only  afford  to 
make  a  very  little  theatre,  and  it  must  be  quite 
simple.  You  all  must  do  the  rest  to  make  a  power- 
ful and  prosperous  theatre  with  a  high  artistic 
ideal."  We  have  kept  through  many  attacks 
and  misunderstandings  the  high  artistic  ideal  we 
set  out  with.  Our  prosperity  enabled  us  to  take 
over  the  Abbey  Theatre  two  years  ago  when  our 
Patent  and  subsidy  came  to  an  end.  I  feel  sure 
Miss  Horniman  is  well  pleased  that  we  have  been 
able  to  show  our  gratitude  by  thus  proving 
ourselves  worthy  of  her  great  and  generous  gift. 

But  in  Dublin  a  new  theatre  cannot  be  opened 
except  under  a  Patent  from  the  Crown.  This 


40  Our  Irish  Theatre 

costs  money  even  when  not  opposed,  and  if  it  is 
opposed,  the  question  has  to  be  argued  by  counsel, 
and  witnesses  have  to  be  called  in  and  examined 
as  if  some  dangerous  conspiracy  were  being  plotted. 
When  our  Patent  was  applied  for,  the  other 
theatres  took  fright  and  believed  we  might  inter- 
fere with  their  gains,  and  they  opposed  our  appli- 
cation, and  there  was  delay  after  delay.  But  at 
last  the  enquiry  was  held  before  the  Privy  Council, 
and  Mr.  Yeats  wrote  on  its  eve:  "3d  August, 
1904.  The  really  important  things  first.  This 
day  is  so  hot  that  I  have  been  filled  with  alarm 
lest  the  lake  may  begin  to  fall  again  and  the  boat 
be  stranded  high  up  on  the  bank  and  I  be  unable 
to  try  my  new  bait.  I  brought  the  boat  up  to  a 
very  shallow  place  the  day  I  left.  I  have  been 
running  about  all  over  the  place  collecting  wit- 
nesses and  have  now  quite  a  number.  I  will 
wire  to-morrow  if  there  is  anything  definite  about 
decision.  In  any  case  I  will  write  full  particulars." 
"August  4th.  Final  decision  is  postponed 
until  Monday  but  the  battle  is  won  to  all  intents 
and  purposes.  There  appears  to  be  no  difficulty 
about  our  getting  a  Patent  for  the  plays  of  the 
Society.  I  sent  you  a  paper  with  the  report  of 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        41 

proceedings, and ,  did  well  for  us;  but 

I  must  say  I  was  rather  amused  at  their  anxiety 
to  show  that  they  supported  us  not  out  of 
love  for  the  arts  but  because  of  our  use  as  anti- 
emigration  agents  and  the  like.  I  think  I  was  a 
bad  witness.  Counsel  did  not  examine  me  but 
asked  me  to  make  a  statement.  The  result  was, 
having  expected  questions  and  feeling  myself  left 
to  wander  through  an  immense  subject,  I  said 
very  little.  I  was  disappointed  at  being  hardly 
cross-examined  at  all.  By  that  time  I  had  got 
excited  and  was  thirsting  for  everybody's  blood. 
One  barrister  in  cross-examining  T.  P.  Gill,  who 
came  after  me,  tried  to  prove  that  Ibsen  and 
Maeterlinck  were  immoral  writers.  He  asked 
was  it  not  true  that  a  play  by  Maeterlinck  called 
The  Intruder  had  raised  an  immense  outcry  in 
London  because  of  its  immorality.  Quite  in- 
voluntarily I  cried  out,  'My  God!'  and  Edward 
Martyn  burst  into  a  loud  fit  of  laughter.  I  sup- 
pose he  must  have  meant  Monna  Vanna,  He  also 
asked  if  the  Irish  National  Theatre  Society  had 
not  produced  a  play  which  was  an  attack  on 
marriage.  Somebody  asked  him  what  was  the 
name  of  the  play.  He  said  it  did  n't  matter  and 


42  Our  Irish  Theatre 

dropped  the  subject.  He  had  evidently  heard 
some  vague  rumour  about  The  Shadow  of  the  Glen. 
I  forgot  to  say  that  William  Fay  gave  his  evidence 
very  well,  as  one  would  expect.  He  had  the  worst 
task  of  us  all,  for  O'Shaughnessy,  a  brow-beating 
cross-examiner  of  the  usual  kind,  fastened  on  to 
him.  Fay,  however,  had  his  answer  for  every- 
thing." 

The  Patent  was  granted  to  me,  "  Dame  Augusta 
Gregory,"  as  Patentee,  and  in  it  I  was  amongst 
other  things  "Enjoined  and  commanded  to  gather, 
entertain,  govern,  privilege,  and  keep  such  and 
so  many  players,"  and  not  to  put  on  the  stage  any 
"exhibition  of  wild  beasts  or  dangerous  perform- 
ances or  to  allow  women  or  children  to  be  hung 
from  the  flies  or  fixed  in  positions  from  which  they 
cannot  release  themselves."  "It  being  our  Royal 
will  and  pleasure  that  for  the  future  our  said 
theatre  may  be  instrumental  to  the  promotion  of 
virtue  and  instruction  of  human  life." 

The  building  was  not  ready  for  us  until  the  end 
of  the  year.  Mr.  Yeats  wrote  in  August:  "I 
have  just  been  down  to  see  the  work  on  the  Abbey 
Theatre.  It  is  all  going  very  quickly  and  the 
company  should  be  able  to  rehearse  there  in  a 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        43 

month.  The  other  day,  while  digging  up  some 
old  rubbish  in  the  Morgue,  which  is  being  used 
for  dressing-rooms,  they  found  human  bones. 
The  workmen  thought  they  had  lit  on  a  murder, 
but  the  caretaker  said,  '  Oh,  I  remember,  we  lost 
a  body  about  seven  years  ago.  When  the  time 
for  the  inquest  came,  it  could  n't  be  found. ' 

I  remembered  this  when  Mr.  Yeats  wrote  to 
me  lately  from  the  Abbey:  "The  other  day  at  a 
performance  of  Countess  Cathleen  one  of  the 
players  stopped  in  the  midst  of  his  speech  and 
it  was  a  moment  or  two  before  he  could  go  on. 
He  told  me  afterwards  his  shoulder  had  suddenly 
been  grasped  by  an  invisible  hand." 

When  the  time  for  the  opening  came,  I  was  ill 
and  could  not  leave  home,  but  had  reports  from 
him  through  the  days  before  the  opening.  "De- 
cember 24,  1904.  The  Company  are  very  disap- 
pointed that  you  will  not  be  up  for  the  first  night/ 
Fay  says  they  would  all  act  better  if  you  were  here. ' ' 

"December  20,  1904.  I  hear  from  Robert  that 
you  may  get  up  for  a  little  to-day.  I  hope  you 
will  take  a  long  rest.  I  shall  see  about  the  awning 
for  the  old  woman's  stall  to-night.  Synge  has  a 
photograph,  which  will  give  us  a  picturesque  form. 


44  Our  Irish  Theatre 

We  changed  all  the  lighting  on  Saturday,  and  the 
costumes  look  much  better  now.  In  any  case 
everything  looks  so  much  better  on  the  new  stage. 
G.  came  in  last  night  with  a  Boer,  who  went  to 
Trinity,  because,  so  far  as  I  could  make  out,  he 
thought  he  would  find  himself  among  sympathetic 
surroundings.  He  and  some  other  young  Boers, 
including  one  who  is  said  to  have  killed  more 
Englishmen  at  Spion  Kop  than  anybody  else,  had 
to  go  to  a  university  in  Europe  and  chose  Ireland. 
Finding  the  sort  of  place  it  is,  they  look  at  the 
situation  with  amusement  and  are  trying  to  get 
out  more  men  of  their  own  sort  to  form  a  rebellious 
coterie.  ...  I  mention  G.,  in  order  to  say  that 
he  wants  to  try  his  hand  at  translating  (Edipus 
the  King  for  us.  To-night  we  go  on  experimenting 
in  lighting  and  after  that  will  come  the  great 
problem  of  keeping  the  bottom  of  the  trews  from 
standing  out  like  frilled  paper  at  the  end  of  a  ham 
bone." 

And  finally  on  the  very  day  of  the  opening: 
"December  27,  '04.  I  am  confident  of  a  fairly 
good  start  with  the  plays, — the  stars  are  quiet 
and  fairly  favourable." 

Then  after   the   first   night,   December  27th, 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        45 

I  had  good  telegrams  and  then  a  letter:  "A  great 
success  in  every  way.  The  audience  seemed 
'heavy'  through  the  opening  dialogue — Fool  and 
Blind  man — and  then  it  woke  up,  applauding  for 
a  long  time  after  the  exit  of  the  kings.  There  was 
great  enthusiasm  at  the  end.  Kathleen  seemed 
more  rebellious  than  I  ever  heard  it,  and  - 
solemnly  begged  me  to  withdraw  it  for  fear  it 
would  stir  up  a  conspiracy  and  get  us  all  into 
trouble.  Then  came  your  play — a  success  from 
the  first.  One  could  hardly  hear  for  the  applause. 
Fay  was  magnificent  as  the  melancholy  man. 
The  whole  play  was  well  played  all  through.  I 
don't  think  I  really  like  the  stone  wall  wings. 
However,  I  was  very  near  and  will  know  better 
to-night.  I  got  a  beautiful  light  effect  in  Bailees 
Strand,  and  the  audience  applauded  the  scene 
even  before  the  play  began.  The  cottage,  too, 
with  the  misty  blue  outside  its  door  is  lovely. 
We  never  had  such  an  audience  or  such  enthusiasm. 
The  pit  clapped  when  I  came  in.  Our  success 

could  not  have  been  greater.     Even admits 

that    your    comedy    [Spreading    the    News],    'is 
undoubtedly  going  to  be  very  popular.'" 

We  worked  for  several  years  with  Mr.  W.  Fay 


46  Our  Irish  Theatre 

as  producer,  as  manager,  as  chief  actor.  In  1903, 
when  all  his  time  was  needed  for  the  enterprise, 
we  paid  him  enough  to  set  him  free  from  other 
work,  a  part  coming  from  the  earnings  of  the 
Company,  a  part  from  Mr.  Yeats,  and  a  part  from 
myself,  for  we  had  little  capital  at  that  time, 
outside  £50  given  by  our  good  friend  Mr.  John 
Quinn,  Attorney  and  Counsellor  in  New  York. 
But  even  large  sums  of  money  would  have  been 
poor  payment  not  only  for  William  Fay's  genius 
and  his  brother's  beautiful  speaking  of  verse,  but 
for  their  devotion  to  the  aim  and  work  of  the 
theatre,  its  practical  and  its  artistic  side.  But 
they  left  us  early  in  1908  at  a  time  of  disagreement 
with  other  members,  and  of  discouragement. 
I  am  very  sorry  that  they,  who  more  than 
almost  any  others  had  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
Irish  Theatre,  did  not  wait  with  us  for  its  success. 

But  building  up  an  audience  is  a  slow  business 

^    .  --•--.-.          — 

when  there  is  anything  unusual  in  the  methods  or 

the  work.  Often  near  midnight,  after  the  theatre 
had  closed,  I  have  gone  round  to  the  newspaper 
offices,  asking  as  a  favour  that  notices  might  be 
put  in,  for  we  could  pay  for  but  few  advertisements 
and  it  was  not  always  thought  worth  while  to  send 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        47 

a  critic  to  our  plays.  Often  I  have  gone  out  by 
the  stage  door  when  the  curtain  was  up,  and  come 
round  into  the  auditorium  by  the  front  hall, 
hoping  that  in  the  dimness  I  might  pass  for  a  new 
arrival  and  so  encourage  the  few  scattered  people 
in  the  stalls.  One  night  there  were  so  few  in  any 
part  of  the  house  that  the  players  were  for  dis- 
missing them  and  giving  no  performance  at  all. 
But  we  played  after  all  and  just  after  the  play 
began,  three  or  four  priests  from  the  country  came 
in.  A  friend  of  theirs  and  of  the  Abbey  had  gone 
beyond  the  truth  in  telling  them  it  was  not  a  real 
theatre.  They  came  round  afterwards  and  told 
us  how  good  they  thought  the  work  and  asked  the 
Company  to  come  down  and  play  in  the  West. 
Very  gften  in  the  green  room  I  have  quoted  the 
homely  proverb,  heard  I  know  not  where,  "Grip 
is  a  good  dog,  but  Hold  Fast  a  better" !  For  there 
is  some  French  blood  in  me  that  keeps  my  spirit 
up,  so  that  I  see  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Yeats  I  am 
indignant  at  some  attributions  of  melancholy: 
"  I  who  at  church  last  Sunday,  when  I  heard  in  the 
Psalms  'Thou  hast  anointed  me  with  the  joy  of 
gladness  above  my  fellows',  thought  it  must  apply 
to  me,  and  that  some  oil  of  the  sort  must  have 


48  Our  Irish  Theatre 

kept  me  watertight  among  seas  of  trouble."  And 
Mr.  Yeats  in  his  turn  wrote  to  encourage  me  in 
some  time  of  attacks:  "Any  fool  can  fight  a  win- 
ning battle,  but  it  needs  character  to  fight  a  losing 
one,  and  that  should  inspire  us;  which  reminds 
me  that  I  dreamed  the  other  night  that  I  was  be- 
ing hanged,  but  was  the  life  and  soul  of  the  party." 
For  there  was  not  always  peace  inside  the  theatre, 
and  there  came  from  time  to  time  that  breaking 
and  rebuilding  that  is  in  the  course  of  nature,  and 
one  must  think  all  for  good  in  the  end.  And  so 
I  answered  some  one  at  a  time  of  discord,  "I  am 
myself  a  lover  of  peace  so  long  as  it  is  not  the  peace 
of  a  dead  body."  And  to  Mr.  Yeats  I  wrote: 
"  I  am  much  more  angry  really  than  you  are  with 
those  who  have  wasted  so  much  of  your  time.  I 
look  on  it  as  child-murder.  Deirdre  might  be  in 
existence  now  but  for  this."  And  to  one  who  left 
us  but  has  since  returned:  "I  want  you  to  sit 
down  and  read  Mr.  Yeats's  notes  in  the  last  two 
numbers  of  Samhain  and  to  ask  yourself  if  the  work 
he  is  doing  is  best  worth  helping  or  hindering. 
Remember,  he  has  been  for  the  last  eight  years 
working  with  his  whole  heart  and  soul  for  the 
creation,  the  furtherance,  the  perfecting,  of  what 


The  Theatre  in  the  Making        49 

he  believes  will  be  a  great  dramatic  movement  in 
Ireland.  I  have  helped  him  all  through,  but  we 
have  lost  many  helpers  by  the  way.  Mr.  Lecky, 
who  had  served  us  well  in  getting  the  law  passed 
that  made  these  dramatic  experiments  possible, 
publicly  repudiated  us  because  of  Mr.  Yeats's 
letter  on  the  Queen's  visit.  .  .  .  Others  were  lost 

for  different  reasons ,  -    — ,  all  of  whom  had 

been  helpful  in  their  time.  Now  others  are 
dropping  off.  It  is  always  sad  to  lose  fellow- 
workers,  but  the  work  must  go  on  all  the  same. 
'No  man  putting  his  hand  to  the  plough  and 
drawing  back  is  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God.' 
He  is  going  on  with  it.  I  am  going  on  with  it  as 
long  as  life  and  strength  are  left  to  me.  ...  It  is 
hard  to  hold  one's  own  against  those  one  is  living 
amongst,  I  have  found  that;  and  I  have  found 
that  peace  comes,  not  from  trying  to  please  one's 
neighbours  but  in  making  up  one's  own  mind 
what  is  the  right  path  and  in  then  keeping  to  it. 
And  so  God  save  Ireland,  and  believe  me  your 
sincere  friend." 

This  now,  according  to  my  memory,  is  how  I 
came  to  work  for  a  National  Theatre  in  Ireland 
and  how  that  Theatre  began. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  BLESSING  OF  THE  GENERATIONS 

On  the  walls  of  the  landing  outside  your  nursery 
door  there  are  pictures  hanging,  painted  as  you 
paint  your  own  with  water-colours,  but  without 
any  blot  or  blur.  Some  are  of  blue  hills  and  of 
streams  running  through  brown  bogs,  but  many  of 
them  are  of  young  girls  and  of  women,  barefooted 
and  wearing  home-dyed  clothes,  knitting  or  carry- 
ing sheaves;  or  of  fishermen  dressed  in  white. 
All,  girls  and  women  and  men  alike,  have  gentle 
faces.  There  is  no  sign  of  the  turf-smoke  that 
dries  the  skin  to  leather.  There  are  no  lines  or 
wrinkles  to  be  seen.  It  may  be  faces  were  like 
that  before  the  great  famine  came  that  changed 
soft  bodies  to  skin  and  bone  and  turned  villages 
to  grazing  for  goats.  Your  great-grandfather  fed 
his  people  at  that  time  and  took  their  sickness  and 
died.  But  perhaps  if  that  painter  were  living 
now,  he  would  draw  likenesses  in  the  same  way, 

50 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     51 

with  the  furrows  and  ridges  left  out.  For  he 
could  only  see  gentleness  like  his  own  in  whatever 
he  had  a  mind  to  paint. 

A  little  lower  on  the  staircase  there  are  pictures 
you  do  not  look  at  now,  likenesses  of  men  not  very 
young,  who  had  done  something  that  made  others 
like  to  meet  them  and  who  dined  together  at  the 
Grillon  Club.  Your  grandfather  is  there  with 
many  of  his  friends;  some  of  them  became  friends 
of  mine.  Here  is  one  that  wrote  books,  you  will 
maybe  read  them  bye  and  bye,  about  good  men 
that  once  lived  in  Ireland,  and  how  Europe  learned 
manners,  and  about  witches  that  were  thrown 
into  ponds. 

Near  the  library  door  there  is  a  drawing  of  an 
old  man.  He  looks  very  tired  and  sad.  He  was 
shut  up  in  prison  for  more  years  than  you  have 
lived.  He  could  not  see  the  lime  trees  blooming 
out  or  the  chestnuts  breaking  from  their  husks. 

That  is  a  younger  man  on  the  other  wall.  There 
is  something  like  a  laugh  in  his  eyes.  Pie  will  live 
and  work  a  long  time,  I  hope,  for  the  work  he  has 
done  is  very  good.  He  gave  you  a  blessing  in 
Irish  one  time  when  I  brought  him  to  see  you  in 
your  cot. 


52  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Among  the  names  on  my  first  list  of  guarantors 
is  that  of  Sir  Frederic  Burton,  painter,  and  for 
many  years  Director  of  the  National  Gallery  in 
Trafalgar  Square.  And  this  name,  like  that  of 
Aubrey  de  Vere,  brings  together  movements  di- 
vided by  half  a  century;  for  Frederic  Burton  had, 
through  personal  friendship  with  Thomas  Davis, 
come  so  near  to  that  side  of  the  National  move- 
ment of  1848  which  expressed  itself  in  writing, 
that  he  had  drawn  the  design  for  the  title-page  of 
the  Spirit  of  the  Nation,  that  book  of  rebel  songs 
and  ballads.  And  he  had  known  others  of  that 
time  whose  names  have  been  remembered,  Fer- 
guson and  Stokes  and  O' Curry.  It  would  make 
my  heart  give  a  quicker  beat  to  hear  him  say: 
"When  I  was  in  Aran  with  Petrie,"  or  "my  model 
for  the  Blind  Girl  at  the  Holy  Well  was  Doctor 
Petrie's  daughter,"  or  "Davis  was  such  a  dear 
fellow  I  could  refuse  him  nothing,"  or,  as  an 
apology  for  not  having  read  Mitchell's  wonderful 
Gaol  Journal,  "I  did  not  like  his  appearance  when 
I  saw  him.  Davis  took  me  to  see  him  somewhere. 
He  was  a  regular  Northern  and  did  not  make  a 
good  impression  on  me.  His  skin  was  blotched 
and  he  had  ginger-coloured  hair."  Though  he 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     53 

resented  the  rising  fame  of  Clarence  Mangan, 
because,  as  he  thought,  it  was  at  the  expense  of 
Thomas  Moore,  "who  had — though  no  one  would 
class  him  among  the  great  poets — mellifluous 
versification,  exquisite  choice  of  language,  and 
was  endowed  at  least  with  a  delicate  fancy  ap- 
proaching to  imagination,"  the  only  authentic 
portrait  of  Mangan,  not  taken  indeed  from  life, 
but  after  death  in  an  hospital,  was  drawn  by  him. 

He  had  wandered  and  painted  in  Germany  and 
in  the  west  of  Ireland,  in  Connemara  and  in  his 
own  county  of  Clare,  till  his  work  at  the  National 
Gallery  forced  him  to  give  up  his  art.  But  in  his 
last  days  he  would  often  speak  of  his  early  days 
in  the  West,  and  of  country  people  he  remembered, 
a  girl  near  Maam  who  was  a  great  singer,  and  a 
piper,  Paddy  Conneely,  who  was  the  best  judge 
of  sheep  and  cattle  in  the  whole  country. 

He  was  during  the  Land  War  when  I  first  knew 
him,  a  very  strong  Unionist,  for  his  sensitive 
nature  shrank  from  its  harsh  and  violent  methods, 
and  for  a  while  he  felt  that  he  had  no  longer  a 
country  to  take  pride  in.  In  1899  he  wrote: 
"...  I  look  forward  with  some  uneasiness  to  the 
advent  of  Patriots  from  beyond  sea,  now  American 


54  Our  Irish  Theatre 

citizens  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  With  this 
outlook  before  it,  the  Government  is  reducing 
the  Irish  Constabulary,  a  most  extraordinary 
proceeding  and  a  quite  unaccountable  one  except 
indeed  on  the  theory  that  every  administration 
is  doomed  to  fatuity  where  Irish  affairs  have  to 
be  dealt  with.  For  the  police  are  the  appointed 
guardians  of  civil  order,  and  however  abused  or 
resisted,  are  recognised  as  such.  But  if  the  mili- 
tary have  to  be  called  out,  what  a  handle  is  given 
to  vapourers  on  both  sides  of  the  Irish  sea!  And 
what  about  the  dismissed  Constables?  Will  they 
not  be  thrown  into  the  ranks  of  the  Patriots?" 

And  in  1895  ne  nad  written,  refusing  an  invi- 
tation to  dine  with  me — I  cannot  remember  who 
I  said  was  coming,  but  he  expressed  this  regret: 
"Especially  as  I  enjoy  meeting  Sir  A.  and  Lady 
Clay,  and  should  have  liked  to  see  a  bird  so  rare 
as  an  honest  Nationalist."  Yet  he  kept  a  spirit 
of  independence  that  was  akin  to  rebellion,  even 
through  those  years  of  official  position  and  pleas- 
ant London  dinners,  and  friendships,  and  the 
Athenaeum  Club. 

During  the  years  after  the  death  in  1892  of  my 
husband,  who  had  been  a  trustee  of  the  National 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     55 

Gallery,  and  Sir  Frederic's  death  in  1900,  our 
friendship  became  a  close  one.  Our  talk  turned 
very  often  from  pictures  and  Italy  to  Ireland.  In 
1897  I  published  Mr.  Gregory's  Letter-box,  a  poli- 
tical history  of  the  years  between  1812  and  1830, 
taken  from  letters  to  and  by  my  husband's  grand- 
father, then  Under-Secretary  for  Ireland.  Sir 
Frederic  was  much  pleased  with  the  book.  He 
came  to  see  me  when  he  had  read  it  and  said:  "  I 
am  glad  you  have  come  down  on  the  real  culprit, 
George  III.,"  and  quoted  one  or  two  people  who 
had  said  his  obstinacy  was  the  cause  of  so  many 
of  Ireland's  troubles.  But  after  a  little  he  said 
very  gravely:  "I  see  a  tendency  to  Home  Rule 
on  your  own  part."  I  said,  "I  defy  any  one  to  ' 
study  Irish  History  without  getting  a  dislike  and 
distrust  of  England."  He  was  silent  for  a  time 
and  then  said,  "That  is  my  feeling,"  and  told  me 
how  patriotic  he  had  been  as  a  boy  though  dis- 
liking "O'Connell  and  his  gang."  Later  he 
accused  me  of  having  become  "A  red  hot  Nation- 
alist," and  said  I  had  no  Irish  blood,  but  I  con- 
vinced him  I  had,  both  Irish  and  French. 

He  was  as  angry  at  the  time  of  the  Boer  War 
as  any  Mayo  ballad-singer  or  Connacht  Ranger's 


56  Our  Irish  Theatre 

wife.  "According  to  the  doctor  I  am  better,  but 
really  this  war  is  killing  me.  It  is  the  worst 
affair  I  recollect.  It  is  utterly  inglorious.  .  .  . 
I  grieve  particularly  for  our  brave  Irishmen  whose 
lives  have  been  squandered  to  no  purpose."  He 
was  to  the  end  a  Unionist,  so  far  as  his  political 
doctrine  went,  but  I  think  his  rooted  passion  for 
Ireland  increased,  and  made,  as  such  strong  pas- 
sions are  used  to  do,  all  politics  seem  but  accidental, 
transitory,  a  business  that  is  outside  the  heart  of 
life. 

The  language  movement,  of  which  I  was  able 
to  bring  him  news,  began  to  excite  him.  One  day 
I  found  him  "excited  and  incredulous  at  Atkinson's 
evidence  against  the  Irish  language,  in  which  he 
says  all  Irish  books  are  filthy  and  all  folk-lore  is 
at  bottom  abominable."  And  then  he  got,  "on 
your  recommendation  and  Doctor  Hyde's  reputa- 
tion as  a  scholar"  the  History  of  Irish  Literature 
and  wrote:  "I  am  reading  Dr.  Hyde's  Literary 
History  with  the  greatest  interest.  It  is  a  high 
pleasure  to  find  the  matter  he  deals  with  treated 
by  a  true  scholar  and  in  a  reasonable  and  philo- 
sophic spirit.  But  indeed  the^advance  in  this 
respect  since  my  earlier  days  is  marvellous.  At 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     57 

that  time  the  comparative  method  was  hardly,  if 
at  all,  thought  of.  Rabid  Irishmen,  who  often 
did  n't  know  their  own  language  but  at  second 
hand,  and  knew  no  other  tongue  at  all,  spouted 
the  rankest  absurdities.  Now  true  light  has  been 
let  in  and  Irish  history,  archaeology,  literature, 
and  poetry  are  the  gainers.  Let  us  not  grudge 
to  the  Germans  their  meed  of  honour  in  having 
led  the  way."  And  again:  "  I  should  be  exceed- 
ingly sorry  if  the  Irish  language  died  out  of  men's 
mouths  altogether.  I  look  upon  the  loss  of  a 
language  or  even  a  dialect  as  equivalent  to  the 
extirpation  of  a  species  in  natural  history.  .  .  .  ' 
Then,  in  1899:  "Those  addresses  of  Dr.  Hyde 
and  Mr.  Yeats  are  very  interesting  and,  I  would 
fain  hope,  may  find  a  response  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people  who  heard  them.  The  subject  is  one  full 
of  sadness.  Self-respect,  a  decaying  language,  a 
dying  music,  how  shall  they  be  resuscitated!  I 
could  weep  when  I  recollect  how  full  Munster, 
Connacht,  and  even  Ulster  were  in  my  earlier 
days  of  exquisite  native  music — when  in  fact 
among  the  peasantry  and  the  Irish  of  the  towns 
you  heard  no  other;  when  the  man  at  the  plough- 
tail  had  his  peculiar  'whistle,'  strange,  wild,  and 


58  Our  Irish  Theatre 

full  of  melody  and  rhythm.  All  this  must  now 
have  passed  away  irrevocably.  May  the  language 
have  a  better  chance!  I  cannot  tell  you  how 
much  Doctor  Hyde's  book  has  moved  me.  Prin- 
cipally it  is  a  manful  effort." 

When  I  was  again  in  London,  he  showed  me  the 
Literary  History  close  at  hand  and  asked  me  a 
little  nervously  what  was  Douglas  Hyde's  age. 
My  answer,  or  surmise,  pleased  him,  and  he  said: 
"Then  he  will  be  able  to  work  for  a  long  time." 
Once  or  twice,  when  we  went  on  to  talk  of  other 
things,  he  came  back  to  this  and  said,  "I  am  so 
glad  he  is  a  young  man." 

He  was  jealous  for  the  honour  of  Ireland 
even  in  lesser  things.  He  was  very  much 
interested  in  the  beginning  of  our  theatre.  In 
1899  he  writes:  "I  am  happy  to  sign  the  guar- 
antee form  for  the  coming  year,  and  enclose  it. 
You  are  a  dreamy  lot  in  Erin.  As  you  say,  I 
think  the  quality  comes  from  the  atmosphere. 
Here  there  is  more  of  the  opposite  than  suits  me, 
but  I  dream  still,  as  I  have  done  all  my  lifetime. 
I  trust  there  will  be  no  shindy  at  the  performance 
of  Countess  Cathleen.  But  if  not,  our  compatriots 
will  have  been  for  once  untrue  to  themselves!" 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     59 

And  later:  "I  am  sincerely  glad  the  experiment 
was  on  the  whole  successful  and  that  those  who 
intended  mischief  after  all  made  but  a  poor  effort 
to  inflict  it.  ...  Altogether  it  appears  as  if  the 
old  palmy  days  of  Dublin  independent  apprecia- 
tion of  the  drama  were  about  to  be  revived  in  our 
altered  times.  I  congratulate  Mr.  Yeats  on  the 
success  of  the  drama  as  an  acting  piece,  and  in 

everything   except   's    beautiful    Irish 

hyperbole.  I  recollect  an  account  of  a  concert 
given  at  Clonmel  several  years  ago,  in  which  the 
eloquent  local  journalist  said  of  one  of  the  amateur 
lady  singers,  after  the  loftiest  eulogy,  'but  it  was 

in  her  last  song  that  Miss  -  gave  the 

coup  de  grace  to  her  performance. ' 

He  cared  very  much  for  Mr.  Yeats's  work,  but 
I  could  never  persuade  him  to  come  and  meet 
him.  He  always  made  some  excuse.  At  last 
he  made  a  promise  for  one  afternoon,  but,  in 
place  of  coming,  he  wrote,  saying  he  was  half 
ashamed  to  confess  to  so  much  enthusiasm,  but 
he  was  so  much  under  the  spell  of  the  poems  that 
he  was  afraid  that,  in  meeting  the  writer,  the 
spell  might  be  broken.  He  told  me  when  next 
I  saw  him  that  of  the  poets  he  had  known  the 


60  Our  Irish  Theatre 

only  ones  that  did  not  disappoint  him  were 
William  Morris  and  Rossetti.  "Swinburne  was 
excitable;  Tennyson  was  grumpy  and  posing; 
Browning  was  charming  as  a  friend,  but  not  ful- 
filling my  idea  of  what  a  poet  should  be."  But  I 
did  bring  them  together  in  the  end,  and  he  thanked 
me  later  and  confessed  my  faith  had  been  justified. 
In  1900,  during  his  last  illness,  I  was  often  with 
him.  I  had  been  away  in  Dublin  for  our  plays 
and  I  find  a  note  written  after  my  return  to 
London:  "Went  to  see  Sir  F.  He  is  in  bed,  and 
I  fear,  or  indeed  must  hope,  the  end  is  very  near. 
...  I  went  up  to  see  him.  He  was  clear  but 
drowsy,  at  first  a  little  inarticulate,  but  when  I 
got  up  to  go,  he  held  my  hand  a  long  time,  speak- 
ing with  great  kindness  .  .  .  asked  for  Robert, 
and  how  the  plays  had  gone.  I  told  him  of 
them,  and  of  the  Times  notice  of  Maeve,  saying 
its  idealism  had  been  so  well  received  by  an 
Irish  audience,  and  of  the  notice  on  the  same 
page  telling  that  Tess  in  London  had  been  jeered 
at  by  an  audience  who  found  it  too  serious. 
He  said:  'That  is  just  what  one  would  expect.' 
He  asked  if  Robert  had  been  abroad  yet,  and  I 
said  no,  he  was  so  fond  of  Ireland  he  had  not  cared 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     61 

to  go  until  now,  and  that  I  myself  found  every 
year  an  increased  delight  and  happiness  in  Ireland. 
He  said,  'It  is  so  with  me.  My  best  joys  have 
been  connected  with  Ireland. '  Then  he  spoke  of 
Celtic  influence  in  English  literature  and  said, 
'There  will  some  day  be  a  great  Pan-Celtic 
Empire.'  And  so  we  parted." 

I  am  glad  that  he  who  had  been  even  a  little 
moved  by  that  stir  in  the  mind,  that  rush  of 
revolutionary  energy  that  moved  the  poets  and 
patriots  and  rebels  of  '48,  should  after  half  a 
hundred  years  have  been  stirred  by  the  intellec- 
tual energy  that  came  with  a  new  generation,  as  its 
imagination  turned  for  a  while  from  the  Parlia- 
ment where  all  was  to  have  been  set  right,  after  the 
break  in  the  Irish  party  and  after  Parnell's  death. 

4 'I_enclose. you. a  guarantee  paper  filled  up  for 
such  a  sum  as  I  can  afford  (or  perhaps  more)  to 
lose,  but  I  hope  there  will  be  no  loss  for  anybody 
hTlhe  matter,  while  there  will  certainly  be  some 
gain  to  Ireland!  I  'd  have  answered  sooner  but 
that  I  am  suffering  from  a  horrible  form  of  dys- 
pepsia, with  exceptional  langour."  It  is  no  wonder 
if  the  old  man  who  sent  with  this  his  promise  for 


62  Our  Irish  Theatre 

twenty  shillings  was  somewhat  broken  in  health. 
He  was  the  last  of  the  Fenian  triumvirate, — Kick- 
ham,  Luby,  O'Leary, — and  he  hadxome  back  to 
Dublin  after  fifteen  year  of  banishment  and  five 
of  penal  servitude  at.  Portland.  John  O'Leary 
had  been  turning  over  books  on  the  stalls  by  the 
Seine  in  Paris,  when  one  day  somebody  had  come 
to  him  and  asked  him  to  come  back  to  Ireland 
where  a  rising  was  being  planned,  and  he  had  come. 
A  part  of  the  romance  of  my  early  days  had 
been  the  whispered  rumours  of  servants,  and  the 
overheard  talk  of  my  elders,  of  the  threatened 
rising  of  the  Fenians: 

"An  army  of  Papists  grim 
"With  a  green  flag  o'er  them. 
"Red  coats  and  black  police 
"Flying  before  them." 

The  house  of  Roxborough,  my  old  home,  had 
once  been  attacked  by  Whiteboys.  My  father  had 
defended  it,  firing  from  the  windows,  and  it  was 
not  hard  to  believe  that  another  attack  might 
be  made.  It  seemed  a  good  occasion  for  being 
allowed  to  learn  to  shoot  with  my  brothers, 
but  that  was  in  those  days  not  thought  fitting, 
even  in  self-defence,  for  a  girl,  and  my  gun  was 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     63 

never  loaded  with  anything  more  weighty  than 
a  coppercap.  So  when  this  new  business  of  the 
theatre  brought  me  to  meet,  amongst  many  others 
till  then  unknown,  John  O'Leary,  I  remembered 
those  old  days  and  the  excitement  of  a  Fenian's 
escape — might  he  not  be  in  hiding  in  our  own 
woods  or  hay-lofts?  And  I  wondered  to 
find  that  not  only  Nationalists  admired  and 
respected  so  wild  and  dangerous  a  rebel.  So  I 
asked  Mr.  Yeats  to  tell  me  the  reason,  for  he  had 
known  him  well  and  had  even  shared  a  lodging 
with  him  for  a  while;  so  that  his  friends  would 
say :  "You  have  the  advantage  over  us.  O'Leary 
takes  so  long  to  convert  to  any  new  thing,  and  you 
can  begin  with  him  at  breakfast."  And  he  wrote 
to  me :  "When  John  O'Leary  returned  from  exile, 
he  found  himself  in  the  midst  of  a  movement 
which  inherited  the  methods  of  O'Connell  and 
a  measure  of  his  success.  Journalists  and  poli- 
ticians were  alike  in  his  eyes  untruthful  men, 
thinking  that  any  means  that  brought  the  end 
were  justified,  and  for  that  reason  certain,  as  he 
thought,  to  miss  the  end  desired.  The  root  of 
all  was,  though  I  doubt  if  he  put  the  thought  into 
words,  that  journalists  and  politicians  looked  for 


64  Our  Irish  Theatre 

their  judges  among  their  inferiors,  and  assumed 
those  opinions  and  passions  that  moved  the  largest 
number  of  men.  Their  school  is  still  dominant, 
and  John  O'Leary  had  seen  through  half  his  life, 
as  we  have  seen,  men  coarsening  their  thought 
and  their  manners,  and  exaggerating  their  emo- 
tions in  a  daily  and  weekly  press  that  was  like 
the  reverie  of  an  hysterical  woman.  He  was  not 
of  O'Connell's  household.  His  master  had  been 
Davis,  and  he  was  quick  to  discover  and  condemn 
the  man  who  sought  for  judgment  not  among  his 
equals  or  in  himself.  He  saw,  as  no  one  else  in 
modern  Ireland  has  seen,  that  men  who  make  this 
choice  are  long  unpopular,  all  through  their  lives 
it  may  be,  but  grow  in  sense  and  courage  with 
their  years,  and  have  the  most  gazers  even  in  the 
end. 

"Yet  he  was  not  unjust  to  those  who  went  the 
other  way.  He  imputed  to  them  no  bad  motives, 
for  I  have  heard  him  say  of  a  man  that  he  dis- 
trusted, 'He  would  not  sacrifice  himself  but  he 
would  risk  himself, '  and  of  a  man  who  seemed  to 
him  to  appeal  always  to  low  motives,  the  chief 
mischief-maker  of  his  kind,  'He  would  sacrifice 
himself.'  Yet,  what  he  himself  commended  with 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     65 

his  favourite  word  '  morale '  was  the  opposite  of 
that  sudden  emotional  self-sacrifice,  the  spurious 
heroism  of  popular  movements,  being  life-long 
hardness  and  serenity,  a  choice  made  every  day 
anew.  He  thought  but  little  of  opinions,  even 
those  he  had  sacrificed  so  much  for,  and  I  have 
heard  him  say, '  There  was  never  cause  so  bad  that 
it  has  not  been  defended  by  good  men  for  good 
reasons.'  And  of  Samuel  Ferguson,  poet  and 
antiquarian,  who  was  not  of  his  party  or  any 
Nationalist  party,  'He  has  been  a  better  patriot 
than  I.'  He  knew  that  in  the  end,  whatever 
else  had  temporary  use,  it  was  simple  things  that 
mattered,  the  things  a  child  can  understand,  a 
man's  courage  and  his  generosity. 

"I  do  not  doubt  that  his  prison  life  had  been 
hard  enough,  but  he  would  not  complain,  having 
been  in  '  the  hands  of  his  enemies ' ;  and  he  would 
often  tell  one  of  that  life,  but  not  of  its  hardships. 
A  famous  popular  leader  of  that  time,  who  made  a 
great  noise  because  he  was  in  prison  as  a  common 
felon  for  a  political  offence,  made  him  very  angry. 
I  said  'It  is  well  known  that  he  has  done  this, 
not  because  he  shrinks  from  hardship  but  because 
there  is  a  danger  in  a  popular  movement  that  the 


66  Our  Irish  Theatre 

obscure  men  who  can  alone  cany  it  to  success, 
may  say,  "our  leaders  are  treated  differently." 
He  answered,  'There  are  things  a  man  must  not 
do,  even  to  save  a  nation.'  And  when  I  asked 
'What  things?'  he  said,  'He  must  not  weep  in 
public.'  He  knew  that  a  doctrine  expediency 
cries  out  on  would  have  but  few  to  follow,  and  he 
would  say,  'Michael  Davitt  wants  his  converts 
by  the  thousand.  I  shall  be  satisfied  with  half  a 
dozen. '  Most  complained  of  his  impracticability, 
and  there  was  a  saying  that  an  angel  could  not 
find  a  course  of  action  he  would  not  discover  a 
moral  flaw  in,  and  it  is  probable  that  his  long 
imprisonment  and  exile,  while  heightening  his 
sense  of  ideal  law,  had  deprived  him  of  initiative 
by  taking  away  its  opportunities.  He  would 
often  complain  that  the  young  men  would  not 
follow  him,  and  I  once  said,  'Your  power  is  that 
they  do  not.  We  can  do  nothing  till  we  have 
converted  you;  you  are  our  conscience.'  Yet  he 
lived  long  enough  to  see  the  young  men  grow  to 
middle  life  and  assume  like  their  fathers  before 
them  that  a  good  Irishman  is  he  who  agreed  with 
the  people.  Yet  we,  when  we  withstand  the 
people,  owe  it  to  him  that  we  can  feel  we  have 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     67 

behind  us  an  Irish  tradition.  'My  religion,'  he 
would  say,  'is  the  old  Persian  one,  "To  pull  the 
bow  and  speak  the  truth. " 

"I  do  not  know  whether  he  would  have  liked 
our  unpopular  plays,  but  I  cannot  imagine  him 
growing  excited  because  he  thought  them  slanders 
upon  Ireland.  O'Connell  had  called  the  Irish 
peasantry  the  finest  peasantry  upon  earth,  and 
his  heirs  found  it  impossible  to  separate  patriotism 
and  flattery.  Again  and  again  John  O'Leary 
would  return  to  this,  and  I  have  heard  him  say, 
'I  think  it  probable  that  the  English  national 
character  is  finer  than  ours,  but  that  does  not 
make  me  want  to  be  an  Englishman.'  I  have 
often  heard  him  defend  Ireland  against  one  charge 
or  another,  and  he  was  full  of  knowledge,  but  the 
patriotism  he  had  sacrificed  so  much  for  marred 
neither  his  justice  nor  his  scholarship. 

"He  disapproved  of  much  of  Parnell's  policy, 
but  Parnell  was  the  only  man  in  Irish  public  life 
of  his  day  who  had  his  sympathy,  and  I  remember 
hearing  some  one  say  in  those  days  be  ore  the 
split  that  are  growing  vague  to  me,  that  Parnell 
never  came  to  Dublin  without  seeing  him.  They 
were  perhaps  alike  in  some  hidden  root  of  character 


68  Our  Irish  Theatre 

though  the  one  had  lived  a  life  of  power  and  excite- 
ment, while  the  other  had  been  driven  into  con- 
templation by  circumstance  and  as  I  think  by 
nature.  Certainly  they  were  both  proud  men." 

He  was,  when  I  knew  him,  living  in  a  little 
room,  books  all  around  him  and  books  in  heaps 
upon  the  floor.  I  would  send  him  sometimes 
snipe  or  golden  plover  from  Kiltartan  bog  or 
woodcock  from  the  hazel  woods  at  Coole,  hoping 
to  tempt  him  with  something  that  might  better 
nourish  the  worn  body  than  the  little  custard 
pudding  that  was  used  to  serve  him  for  his  two 
days'  dinner,  because  of  that  "horrible  dyspepsia" 
that  often  makes  those  who  have  been  long  in 
prison  live  starving  after  their  release,  mocked 
with  the  sight  of  food. 

It  was  through  reading  Davis's  poems  he  had 
become  a  Nationalist,  and  his  own  influence  had 
helped  to  shape  this  other  poet  in  the  same  fashion, 
for  from  the  time  of  Yeats' s  boyhood  there  had 
been  a  close  friendship  between  them,  the  old 
man  admiring  the  young  man's  genius,  and  taking 
his  side  in  the  quarrels  that  arose  about  patriotism 
in  poetry  and  the  like.  I  remember  their  both 
dining  with  me  one  evening  in  London  and  coming 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     69 

on  to  see  a  very  poor  play,  very  badly  acted  by 
some  Irish  society.  At  its  end  Yeats  was  asked 
to  say  some  words  of  gratitude  for  the  performance, 
during  which  we  had  all  felt  impatient  and  vexed. 
He  did  speak  at  some  length,  and  held  his  audi- 
ence, and  without  telling  any  untruth  left  them 
feeling  that  all  had  gone  well.  John  O'Leary 
turned  to  me  and  said  fervently,  "I  don't  think 
there  is  anything  on  God's  earth  that  Willie 
Yeats  could  not  make  a  speech  about!" 

There  is  a  bust  of  John  O'Leary  in  the  Municipal 
Gallery.  The  grand  lines  of  the  massive  head, 
the  eyes  full  of  smouldering  fire,  might  be  those  of 
some  ancient  prophet  understanding  his  people's 
doom. 

There  is  nothing  of  storm  or  unrest  about  that 
other  Dublin  monument,  that  bronze  figure 
sitting  tranquilly  within  the  gates  of  Trinity 
College  and  within  its  quadrangle.  Lecky  was 
the  reasoner,  the  philosopher,  the  looker-on, 
writing  his  histories,  even  of  Ireland,  through  the 
uproar  of  the  Land  War  with  the  same  detachment 
as  did  the  Four  Masters,  writing  their  older 
history  amongst  the  wars  and  burnings  of  the 


70  Our  Irish  Theatre 

seventeenth  century  that  were  so  terrible  in 
Ireland. 

He  had  been  a  debater  while  an  undergraduate 
of  Trinity,  and  it  was  fitting  that  he  should  have 
represented  it  in  Parliament  during  his  last  years. 

Trinity,  where  Wolfe  Tone  had  been  an  under- 
graduate a  hundred  years  earlier  had  changed  in 
that  hundred  years.  I  was  in  Paris  in  1900  and 
went  to  see  an  old  acquaintance,  that  most 
imaginative  archaeologist,  Salomon  Reinach. 
He  told  me  he  had  been  lately  to  Ireland  and 
he  had  been  astonished  by  two  things,  the 
ignorance  of  the  Irish  language  —  it  was  not 
known  even  by  the  head  of  the  Dublin  Museum 
or  the  head  of  its  archaeological  side — and  by  the 
hostility  of  Trinity  College  to  all  things  Irish. 
"It  is  an  English  fort,  nothing  else."  "Its  gar- 
rison," the  students,  had  gone  out  and  broken  the 
windows  of  a  newspaper  office  while  he  was  there, 
and  he  had  spent  an  evening  with  Doctor  Mahaffy, 
who  was  "much  astonished  that  I  was  no  longer 
taken  up  with  Greek  things,  and  that  I  found 
Irish  antiquity  so  much  more  interesting." 

I  have  already  told  of  Lecky's  help  to  our 
theatre.  He  had  a  real  affection  for  his  country, 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     71 

but  was  not  prone  to  join  societies  or  leagues. 
He  had  given  us  his  name  as  one  of  our  first 
guarantors,  offering  £5  instead  of  the  £i  I  had 
asked.  But  he  publicly  withdrew  his  name  later, 
without  his  usual  reasonableness,  because  of 
letters  written  by  Mr.  Yeats  and  Mr.  George 
Moore  at  the  time  of  Queen  Victoria's  visit  to 
Dublin.  This  had  been  announced  as  a  private 
visit,  and  Nationalists  had  promised  a  welcome. 
Then  it  was  turned  into  a  public  one,  and  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  angry  feeling,  and  it  seemed  as 
if  the  theatre — although  quite  outside  politics — 
would  suffer  for  a  while.  Though  Mr.  Yeats, 
wrote:  "I  don't  think  you  need  be  anxious 
about  next  year's  theatre.  Clever  Unionists 
will  take  us  on  our  merits,  and  the  rest  would  never 
like  us  at  any  time.  I  have  found  a  greatly 
increased  friendliness  on  the  part  of  some  of  the 
younger  men  here.  In  a  battle  like  Ireland's, 
which  is  one  of  poverty  against  wealth,  one  must 
prove  one's  sincerity  by  making  oneself  unpopular 
to  wealth.  One  must  accept  the  baptism  of  the 
gutter.  Have  not  all  teachers  done  the  like  ?  "  I  an- 
swered that  I  preferred  the  baptism  of  clean  water. 
I  was  troubled  by  the  misunderstanding  of  friends. 


72  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Trinity  College  is  not  keeping  aloof  now,  and  as 
to  Mr.  Lecky  himself,  the  House  of  Commons 
took  away  some  prejudices.  He  spoke  to  me  of 
Mr.  John  Redmond  and  his  leadership  with  great 
admiration  and  esteem.  I  find  a  note  written 
after  a  pleasant  dinner  with  him  and  Mrs.  Lecky 
m  vlnslow  Gardens:  "  He  grieved  over  the  exag- 
gerated statements  of  the  financial  reformers.  I 
pressed  Land  Purchase  as  the  solution  of  our 
trouble,  but  he  says  what  is  true,  'It  means 
changing  every  hundred  pounds  into  seventy.' 
Talking  of  Robert's  future,  he  said,  'It  is  a 
great  thing  to  have  a  competence  behind  one.' 
He  said  he  had  been  brought  up  for  the 
Church,  but  found  he  could  not  enter  it,  and 
went  abroad  and  drifted,  never  thinking  he 
would  marry,  and  leading  a  solitary  life,  and  so 
took  to  letters  and  succeeded.  He  thinks  Par- 
liament lessens  one's  interest  in  political  questions, 
—so  much  connected  with  them  is  of  no  value, 
and  there  is  so  much  empty  noise." 

I  often  heard  of  his  speaking  well  and  even  boast- 
ing of  our  Theatre  and  its  work,  but  though  he 
often  came  to  see  me,  he  would  not  quite  give  up 
fault-finding.  ' '  Dined  at  Lecky 's ;  he  rather  cross. 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     73 

He  took  me  down  to  dinner  and  said  first  thing, 
1  What  silly  speeches  your  Celtic  people  have  been 
making.'  'Moore?'  I  asked.  'Yes,  and  Yeats. 
Oh,  very  silly!'  He  is  in  bad  humour  because 
Blackrock,  which  he  has  known,  and  known  to 
speak  English  all  his  life,  has  sent  him  a  copy  of 
resolutions  in  favour  of  the  revival  of  Irish.  In 
revenge  I  told  him  how  a  Deputy  Lieutenant 
(Edward  Martyn)  was  proclaiming  himself  a 
convert  to  Nationalism  through  reading  his 
Leaders  of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland.  But  that 
book,  he  used  to  say,  had  been  a  long  time  in 
influencing  anybody,  for  of  its  first  edition  only 
thirty  copies  had  been  sold." 

He  forgave  us  all  after  a  while,  used  to  come  and 
ask  for  news  whenever  I  had  come  to  London  from 
home,  and  told  me  quite  proudly  after  a  visit  to 
Oxford  that  the  undergraduates  there  accepted 
no  living  poet  but  Yeats.  But  to  the  last  he  would 
say  to  me  plaintively  on  parting,  "Do  not  do 
anything  incendiary  when  you  go  back  to  Ireland." 

My  first  meeting  with  Douglas  Hyde  had  been 
when  he  came  in  one  day  with  a  broken  bicycle 
during  lunch  at  my  neighbour  Mr.  Martyn's  house 


74  Our  Irish  Theatre 

where  I  was  staying.  He  had  been  coming  by 
train,  but  had  got  out  at  a  village,  Craughwell 
(as  I  myself  did  a  good  while  afterwards  on  the 
same  errand),  in  search  of  memories  of  Raftery, 
the  Connacht  poet.  I  had  my  own  pony  carriage 
with  me,  and  that  afternoon  I  drove  to  the  Round 
Tower  and  the  seven  churches  of  Kilmacduagh, 
taking  with  me  Douglas  Hyde  and  Mr.  William 
Sharp,  whom  I  even  then  suspected  of  being 
"Fiona  Macleod."  Mr.  Sharp — not  by  my  in- 
vitation— took  the  place  beside  me,  and  left  the 
back  seat  for  the  poet-dramatist,  the  founder  of 
the  Gaelic  League  of  Ireland. 

He  often  came  to  stay  with  me  and  my  son  at 
Coole  after  that.  The  first  time  was  in  winter, 
for  a  shooting  party.  Some  old  ladies — our 
neighbours — asked  our  keeper  who  our  party  was, 
and  on  hearing  that  one  was  a  gentleman  who 
spoke  to  the  beaters  in  Irish,  they  said,  "he  can 
not  be  a  gentleman  if  he  speaks  Irish."  With  all 
his  culture  and  learning,  his  delight  was  in  talking 
with  the  people  and  hearing  their  poems  and 
fragments  of  the  legends.  I  remember  one  day, 
he  went  into  a  thatched  cottage  to  change  his 
boots  after  shooting  snipe  on  Kilmacduagh  bog, 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     75 

and  talked  with  an  old  woman  who  had  not  much 
English  and  who  welcomed  him  when  he  spoke 
in  her  own  tongue.  But  when  she  heard  he  was 
from  Mayo,  looked  down  on  by  dwellers  in 
Galway,  she  laughed  very  much  and  repeated  a 
line  of  a  song  in  Irish  which  runs : 

"There  '11  be  boots  on  me  yet,  says  the  man 
from  the  county  Mayo!" 

Near  Kilmacduagh  also  he  was  told  a  long  story, 
having  Aristotle  for  its  hero.  Sometimes  he  was 
less  lucky.  I  brought  an  old  man  to  see  him, 
I  was  sure  could  give  him  stories.  But  he  only 
told  one  of  a  beggar  who  went  to  Castle  -  — , 
a  neighbouring  house,  the  master  of  which  had 
given  him  a  half -penny,  saying,  "that  is  for  my 
father's  and  mother's  soul."  "And  the  beggar 
added  another  half-penny  to  it,  and  laid  it  down 
on  the  step,  and,  'There's  a  half -penny  for  my 
father's  soul  and  a  half-penny  for  my  mother's, 
and  I  would  n't  go  to  the  meanness  of  putting 
them  both  in  one."1 

He  has  done  his  work  by  methods  of  peace,  by 
keeping  quarrels  out  of  his  life,  with  all  but 
entire  success.  I  find  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Yeats: 
"  I  will  send  you  Claideam  that  you  may  see  some 


76  Our  Irish  Theatre 

of  the  attacks  by  recalcitrant  Gaelic  Leaguers  on 
the  Craoibhin.  Well,  I  am  sorry,  but  if  he  can't 
keep  from  making  enemies,  what  chance  is  there 
for  the  like  of  us?" 

He  was  one  of  the  vice-presidents  of  our  Society 
for  a  while  and  we  are  always  grateful  to  him  for 
that  Twisting  of  the  Rope  in  which  he  played  with 
so  much  gaiety,  ease,  and  charm.  But  in  founding 
the  Gaelic  League,  he  had  done  far  more  than  that 
for  our  work.  It  was  a  movement  for  keeping 
the  Irish  language  a  spoken  one,  with,  as  a  chief 
end,  the  preserving  of  our  own  nationality.  That 
does  not  sound  like  the  beginning  of  a  revolution, 
yet  it  was  one.  It  was  the  discovery,  the  dis- 
closure of  the  folk-learning,  the  folk-poetry,  the 
folk- tradition.  Our  Theatre  was  caught  into  that 
current,  and  it  is  that  current,  as  I  believe,  that 
has  brought  it  on  its  triumphant  way.  It  is 
chiefly  known  now  as  a  folk-theatre.  It  has  not 
only  the  great  mass  of  primitive  material  and  legend 
to  draw  on,  but  it  has  been  made  a  living  thing 
by  the  excitement  of  that  discovery.  All  our 
writers,  Mr.  Yeats  himself,  were  influenced  by  it. 
Mr.  Synge  found  what  he  had  lacked  before — 
fable,  emotion,  style.  Writing  of  him  I  have 


The  Blessing  of  the  Generations     77 

said  "He  tells  what  he  owes  to  that  collaboration 
with  the  people,  and  for  all  the  attacks,  he  has 
given  back  to  them  what  they  will  one  day  thank 
him  for.  .  .  .  The  return  to  the  people,  the  re- 
union after  separation,  the  taking  and  giving,  is 
it  not  the  perfect  circle,  the  way  of  nature,  the 
eternal  wedding-ring?" 


CHAPTER  III 

PLAY-WRITING 

WHEN  we  first  planned  our  Theatre,  there  were 
very  few  plays  to  choose  from,  but  our  faith  had 
no  bounds  and  as  the  Irish  proverb  says,  "When 
the  time  comes,  the  child  comes." 

The  plays  that  I  have  cared  for  most  all  through, 

and  for  love  of  which  I  took  up  this  work,  are 

* 

those  verse  ones  by  Mr.  Yeats  The  Countess  Cath- 

leen  with  which  we  began,  The  Shadowy  Waters, 

The  King's  Threshold,  and  the  rest.     They  have 

sometimes  seemed  to  go  out  of  sight  because  the 

prose  plays  are  easier  to  put  on  and  to  take  from 

place  to  place;  yet  they  will  always  be,  if  I  have 

/my  way,  a  part  of  our  year's  work.    I  feel  verse  is 

,  more  than  any  prose  can  be,  the  apex  of  the  flame, 

'  the  point  of  the  diamond.     The  well-to-do  people 

in  our  stalls  sometimes  say,  "We  have  had  enough 

of  verse  plays,  give  us  comedy. "     But  the  people  in 

the  sixpenny  places  do  not  say  they  get  too  much  of 

78 


Play- writing  79 

them,  and  the  players  themselves  work  in  them 
with  delight.  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Yeats  when  On 
Bailees  Strand  was  being  rehearsed:  "Just  back 
from  rehearsal,  and  cheered  up  on  the  whole.  The 
Moliere  goes  very  well,  and  will  be  quite  safe 
when  the  two  servants  have  been  given  a  little 
business.  Synge  says  it  was  quite  different  to- 
night. They  all  waked  up  in  honour  of  me.  As 
to  Bailees  Strand,  it  will  be  splendid.  .  .  .  The 
only  real  blot  at  present  is  the  song,  and  it  is  very 
bad.  The  three  women  repeat  it  together.  Their 
voices  don't  go  together.  One  gets  nervous 
listening  for  the  separate  ones.  No  one  knows 
how  you  wish  it  done.  Every  one  thinks  the  words 
ought  to  be  heard.  I  got  Miss  Allgood  to  speak 
it  alone,  and  that  was  beautiful,  and  we  thought 
if  it  did  n't  delay  the  action  too  long,  she  might 
speak  it,  and  at  the  end  she  and  the  others  might 
sing  or  hum  some  lines  of  it  to  a  definite  tune. 
If  you  can  quite  decide  what  should  be  done,  you 
can  send  directions,  but  if  you  are  doubtful,  I 
almost  think  you  must  come  over.  You  must  n't 
risk  spoiling  the  piece.  It  is  quite  beautiful. 
W.  Fay  most  enthusiastic,  says  you  are  a  won- 
derful man,  and  keeps  repeating  lines.  He  says, 


8o  Our  Irish  Theatre 

'There  is  nothing  like  that  being  written  in 
London.'" 

But  the  listeners,  and  this  especially  when  they 
are  lovers  of  verse,  have  to  give  so  close  an  atten- 
tion to  the  lines,  even  when  given  their  proper 
value  and  rhythm  as  by  our  players,  that  ear  and 
mind  crave  ease  and  unbending,  and  so  comedies 
were  needed  to  give  this  rest.  That  is  why  I 
began  writing  them,  and  it  is  still  my  pride  when 
one  is  thought'  worthy  to  be  given  in  the  one 
evening  with  the  poetic  work. 

I  began  by  writing  bits  of  dialogue,  when  wanted. 
Mr.  Yeats  used  to  dictate  parts  of  Diarmuid  and 
Crania  to  me,  and  I  would  suggest  a  sentence  here 
and  there.  Then  I,  as  well  as  another,  helped  to 
fill  spaces  in  Where  There  is  Nothing.  Mr.  Yeats 
says  in  dedicating  it  to  me:  "I  offer  you  a  book 
which  is  in  part  your  own.  Some  months  ago,  when 
our  Irish  dramatic  movement  took  its  present 
form,  I  saw  that  somebody  must  write  a  number 
of  plays  in  prose  if  it  was  to  have  a  good  start.  I 
did  not  know  what  to  do,  although  I  had  my  dra- 
matic fables  ready  and  a  pretty  full  sketch  of  one 
play,  for  my  eyes  were  troubling  me,  and  I  thought 
I  could  do  nothing  but  verse,  which  one  can  carry 


-,.'; 

;: 


Miss  Sara  Allgood 

From  a  ilrawinK  '>>'  Rolicrt  tircgory 


Play-writing  81 

about  in  one's  head  for  a  long  time,  and  write 
down,  as  De  Musset  put  it,  with  a  burnt  match. 
You  said  I  might  dictate  to  you,  and  we  worked 
in  the  mornings  at  Coole,  and  I  never  did  anything 
that  went  so  easily  and  quickly;  for  when  I  hesi- 
tated you  had  the  right  thought  ready  and  it  was 
almost  always  you  who  gave  the  right  turn  to  the 
phrase  and  gave  it  the  ring  of  daily  life.  We 
finished  several  plays,  of  which  this  is  the  longest, 
in  so  few  weeks  that  if  I  were  to  say  how  few,  I 
do  not  think  anybody  would  believe  me." 

Where  There  is  Nothing  was  given  by  the  Stage 
Society  in  London,  but  Mr.  Yeats  was  not  satisfied 
with  it,  and  we  have  since  re-written  it  as  The 
Unicorn  from  the  Stars.  Yet  it  went  well  and  was 
vital.  It  led  to  an  unexpected  result:  "I  hear 
that  some  man  of  a  fairly  respectable  class  was 
taken  up  with  a  lot  of  tinkers  somewhere  in  Mun- 
ster,  and  that  the  Magistrate  compared  him  to 
'Paul  Ruttledge. '  The  next  night  one  of  the 
tinkers  seems  to  have  said  something  to  the  others 
about  their  being  in  a  book.  The  others  resented 
this  in  some  way,  and  there  was  a  fight,  which 
brought  them  all  into  Court  again.  I  am  trying 
to  get  the  papers." 


\ 


. 


82  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Later  in  the  year  we  wrote  together  Kathleen 
ni  Houlihan  and  to  that  he  wrote  an  introductory 
letter  addressed  to  me :  ' '  One  night  I  had  a  dream 
almost  as  distinct  as  a  vision,  of  a  cottage  where 
there  was  well-being  and  firelight  and  talk  of  a 
marriage,  and  into  the  midst  of  that  cottage  there 
came  an  old  woman  in  a  long  cloak.  She  was 
Ireland  herself,  that  Kathleen  ni  Houlihan  for 
whom  so  many  songs  have  been  sung  and  for 
whose  sake  so  many  have  gone  to  their  death.  I 
thought  if  I  could  write  this  out  as  a  little  play,  I 
could  make  others  see  my  dream  as  I  had  seen  it, 
but  I  could  not  get  down  from  that  high  window 
of  dramatic  verse,  and  in  spite  of  all  you  had  done 
for  me,  I  had  not  the  country  speech.  One  has  to 
live  among  the  people,  like  you,  of  whom  an  old 
man  said  in  my  hearing,  '  She  has  been  a  serving 
maid  among  us, '  before  one  can  think  the  thoughts 
of  the  people  and  speak  with  their  tongue.  We 
turned  my  dream  into  the  little  play,  Kathleen  ni 
Houlihan,  and  when  we  gave  it  to  the  little  theatre 
in  Dublin  and  found  that  the  working  people 
liked  it,  you  helped  me  to  put  my  other  dramatic 
fables  into  speech." 

For  The  Pot  of  Broth  also  I  wrote  dialogue  and 


Play-writing  83 

I  worked  as  well  at  the  plot  and  the  construction  of 
some  of  the  poetic  plays,  especially  The  King's 
Threshold  and  Deirdre;  for  I  had  learned  by  this  / 
time  a  good  deal  about  play-writing  to  which  I 
had  never  given  thought  before.  I  had  never 
cared  much  for  the  stage,  although  when  living  a 
good  deal  in  London,  my  husband  and  I  went,  as 
others  do,  to  see  some  of  each  season's  plays.  I 
find,  in  looking  over  an  old  diary,  that  many  of 
these  have  quite  passed  from  my  mind,  although 
books  I  read  ever  so  long  ago,  novels  and  the  like, 
have  left  at  least  some  faint  trace  by  which  I  may 
recognise  them. 

We  thought  at  our  first  start  it  would  make  the 
whole  movement  more  living  and  bring  it  closer 
to  the  people  if  the  Gaelic  League  would  put  on 
some  plays  written  in  Irish.  Dr.  Hyde  thought  well 
of  the  idea,  and  while  staying  here  at  Coole,  as  he 
did  from  time  to  time,  he  wrote  The  Twisting  of 
the  Rope,  based  on  one  of  Mr.  Yeats's  Hanrahan 
stories;  The  Lost  Saint  on  a  legend  given  its  shape 
by  Mr.  Yeats,  and  The  Nativity  on  a  scenario  we 
wrote  together  for  him.  Afterwards  he  wrote 
The  Marriage  and  The  Poorhouse,  upon  in  each 
case  a  scenario  written  by  me.  I  betray  no 


84  Our  Irish  Theatre 

secret  in  telling  this,  for  Dr.  Hyde  has  made 
none  of  the  collaboration,  giving  perhaps  too 
generous  acknowledgment,  as  in  Galway,  where 
he  said,  when  called  before  the  curtain  after 
The  Marriage,  that  the  play  was  not  his  but 
that  Lady  Gregory  had  written  it  and  brought  it 
to  him,  saying  "Cur  Gaedilge  air/1  "Put  Irish  on 
it."  I  find  in  a  letter  of  mine  to  Mr.  Yeats: 
"Thanks  for  sending  back  Raftery.  I  haven't 
sent  it  to  Hyde  yet.  The  real  story  was  that 
Raftery  by  chance  went  into  a  house  where  such 
a  wedding  was  taking  place  'that  was  only  a 
marriage  and  not  a  wedding '  and  where  there  was 
'nothing  but  a  herring  for  the  dinner,'  and  he 
made  a  song  about  it  and  about  all  the  imaginary 
grand  doings  at  it  that  has  been  remembered 
ever  since.  But  it  didn't  bring  any  practical 
good  to  the  young  people,  for  Raftery  himself 
'had  to  go  to  bed  in  the  end  without  as  much  as  a 
drop  to  drink,  but  he  did  n't  mind  that,  where 
they  had  n't  it  to  give. ' 

But  it  went  through  some  changes  after  that: 
"  I  have  a  letter  from  the  Craoibhin.  He  has  lost 
his  Trinity  College  play  and  must  re- write  it  from 
my  translation.  He  is  not  quite  satisfied  with 


Play-writing  85 

Raftery  (The  Marriage).  'I  don't  think  Maire's 
uncertainty  if  it  be  a  ghost  or  not  is  effective  on 
the  stage.  I  would  rather  have  the  ghost  "out 
and  out"  as  early  as  possible,  and  make  it  clear 
to  the  audience.'  I  rather  agree  with  him.  I 
think  I  will  restore  the  voice  at  the  door  in  my 
published  version." 

And  again  I  wrote  from  Gal  way :  "I  came  here 
yesterday  for  a  few  days'  change,  but  the  journey, 
or  the  little  extra  trouble  at  leaving,  set  my  head 
aching,  and  I  had  to  spend  all  yesterday  in  a  dark 
room.  In  the  evening,  when  the  pain  began  to  go, 
I  began  to  think  of  the  Raftery  play,  and  I  want 
to  know  if  this  end  would  do.  After  the  miser 
goes  out,  Raftery  stands  up  and  says,  '  I  won't  be 
the  only  one  in  the  house  to  give  no  present  to  the 
woman  of  the  house, '  and  hands  her  the  plate  of 
money,  telling  them  to  count  it.  While  they  are 
all  gathered  round  counting  it,  he  slips  quietly 
from  the  door.  As  he  goes  out,  wheels  or  horse 
steps  are  heard,  and  a  farmer  comes  in  and  says, 
'What  is  going  on?  All  the  carts  of  the  country 
gathered  at  the  door,  and  Seaghan,  the  Miser, 
going  swearing  down  the  road?'  They  say  it  is  a 
wedding  party  called  in  by  Raftery.  But  where 


86  Our  Irish  Theatre 

is  Raftery?  Is  he  gone?  They  ask  the  farmer  if 
he  met  him  outside — the  poet  Raftery — and  he 
says,  'I  did  not,  but  I  stood  by  his  grave  at  Kil- 
leenin  yesterday.'  Do  you  think  that  better? 
It  gets  rid  of  the  good-byes  and  the  storm,  and 
I  don't  think  any  amount  of  hints  convey  the 
ghostly  idea  strongly  enough.  Let  me  know  at 
once;  just  a  word  will  do." 

As  to  The  Poorhouse,  the  idea  came  from  a  visit 
to  Gort  Workhouse  one  day  when  I  heard  that  the 
wife  of  an  old  man,  who  had  been  long  there, 
maimed  by  something,  a  knife  I  think,  that  she 
had  thrown  at  him  in  a  quarrel,  had  herself  now 
been  brought  in  to  the  hospital.  I  wondered  how 
they  would  meet,  as  enemies  or  as  friends,  and  I 
thought  it  likely  they  would  be  glad  to  end  their 
days  together  for  old  sake's  sake.  This  is  how 
I  wrote  down  my  fable:  "Scene,  ward  of  a  work- 
house; two  beds  containing  the  old  men;  they  are 
quarrelling.  Occupants  of  other  invisible  beds 
are  heard  saying,  'There  they  are  at  it  again; 
they  are  always  quarrelling.'  They  say  the 
matron  will  be  coming  to  call  for  order,  but  another 
says  the  matron  has  been  sent  for  to  see  some- 
body who  wants  to  remove  one  of  the  paupers. 


Play- writing  87 

Both  old  men  wish  they  could  be  removed  from 
each  other  and  have  the  whole  ridge  of  the  world 
between  them.  The  fight  goes  on.  One  old  man 
tells  the  other  that  he  remembers  the  time  he  used 
to  be  stealing  ducks,  and  he  a  boy  at  school.  The 
other  old  man  remembers  the  time  his  neighbour 
was  suspected  of  going  to  Souper's  school,  etc., 
etc.  They  remember  the  crimes  of  each  other's 
lives.  They  fight  like  two  young  whelps  that  go 
on  fighting  till  they  are  two  old  dogs.  At  last 
they  take  their  pillows  and  throw  them  at  each 
other.  Other  paupers  (invisible)  cheer  and  ap- 
plaud. Then  they  take  their  porringers,  pipes, 
prayer-books,  or  whatever  is  in  reach,  to  hurl  at 
each  other.  They  lament  the  hard  fate  that  has 
put  them  in  the  same  ward  for  five  years  and  in 
beds  next  each  other  for  the  last  three  months,  and 
they  after  being  enemies  the  whole  of  their  lives. 
Suddenly  a  cry  that  the  matron  is  coming.  They 
settle  themselves  hurriedly.  Each  puts  his  enemy's 
pillow  under  his  head  and  lies  down.  The  matron 
comes  in  with  a  countrywoman  comfortably 
dressed.  She  embraces  one  old  man.  She  is  his 
sister.  Her  husband  died  from  her  lately  and 
she  is  lonesome  and  does  n't  like  to  think  of  her 


88  Our  Irish  Theatre 

brother  being  in  the  workhouse.  If  he  is  bedrid- 
den itself,  he  would  be  company  for  her.  He  is 
delighted,  asks  what  sort  of  house  she  has.  She 
says,  a  good  one,  a  nice  kitchen,  and  he  can  be 
doing  little  jobs  for  her.  He  can  be  sitting  in  a 
chair  beside  the  fire  and  stirring  the  stirabout  for 
her  and  throwing  a  bit  of  food  to  the  chickens  when 
she  is  out  in  the  field.  He  asks  when  he  can  go. 
She  says  she  has  the  chance  of  a  lift  for  him  on 
a  neighbour's  cart.  He  can  come  at  once.  He 
says  he  will  make  no  delay.  A  loud  sob  from  the 
old  man  in  the  other  bed.  He  says,  '  Is  it  going 
away  you  are,  you  that  I  knew  through  all  my 
lifetime,  and  leaving  me  among  strangers?'  The 
first  old  man  asks  his  sister  if  she  will  bring  him 
too.  She  is  indignant,  says  she  won't.  First  old 
man  says  maybe  he  'd  be  foolish  to  go  at  all. 
How  does  he  know  if  he  'd  like  it.  She  says, 
he  is  to  please  himself;  if  he  does  n't  come,  she  can 
easily  get  a  husband,  having,  as  she  has,  a  nice 
way  of  living,  and  three  lambs  going  to  the  next 
market.  The  first  man  says,  well,  he  won't  go; 
if  she  would  bring  the  other  old  man,  he  would  go. 
She  turns  her  back  angrily.  Paupers  in  other 
beds  call  out  she  '11  find  a  good  husband  amongst 


Play- writing  89 

them.  She  pulls  on  her  shawl  scornfully  to  go 
away.  She  gives  her  brother  one  more  chance; 
he  says  he  won't  go.  She  says  good-bye  and 
bad  luck  to  him.  She  leaves.  He  says  that  man 
beyond  would  be  lonesome  with  no  one  to  con- 
tradict him.  The  other  man  says  he  would  not. 
The  first  man  says,  'You  want  some  one  to  be 
arguing  with  you  always.'  The  second  man,  'I 
do  not.'  The  first  man  says,  'You  are  at  your 
lies  again.'  The  second  takes  up  his  pillow  to 
heave  at  him  again.  Curtain  falls  on  two  men 
arming  themselves  with  pillows." 

I  intended  to  write  the  full  dialogue  myself, 
but  Mr.  Yeats  thought  a  new  Gaelic  play  more 
useful  for  the  moment,  and  rather  sadly  I  laid 
that  part  of  the  work  upon  Dr.  Hyde.  It  was 
all  for  the  best  in  the  end,  for  the  little  play,  when 
we  put  it  on  at  the  Abbey,  did  not  go  very  well. 
It  seemed  to  ravel  out  into  loose  ends,  and  we  did 
not  repeat  it;  nor  did  the  Gaelic  players  like  it  as 
well  as  The  Marriage  and  The  Lost  Saint.  After 
a  while,  when  the  Fays  had  left  us,  I  wanted  a 
play  that  would  be  useful  to  them,  and  with 
Dr.  Hyde's  full  leave  I  re-wrote  the  Poorhouse 
as  The  Workhouse  Ward.  I  had  more  skill  by  that 


90  Our  Irish  Theatre 

time,  and  it  was  a  complete  re- writing,  for  the  two 
old  men  in  the  first  play  had  been  talking  at  an 
imaginary  audience  of  other  old  men  in  the  ward. 
When  this  was  done  away  with  the  dialogue  be- 
came of  necessity  more  closely  knit,  more  direct 
and  personal,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  play, 
although  it  was  rejected  as  "too  local"  by  the 
players  for  whom  I  had  written  it.  The  success 
of  this  set  me  to  cutting  down  the  number  of 
parts  in  later  plays  until  I  wrote  Crania  with 
only  three  persons  in  it,  and  The  Bogie  Men  with 
only  two.  I  may  have  gone  too  far,  and  have,  I 
think,  given  up  an  intention  I  at  one  time  had  of 
writing  a  play  for  a  man  and  a  scarecrow  only, 
but  one  has  to  go  on  with  experiment  or  interest 
in  creation  fades,  at  least  so  it  is  with  me. 

In  1902,  my  Twenty-five  was  staged;  a  rather 
sentimental  comedy,  not  very  amusing.  It  was 
useful  at  the  time  when  we  had  so  few,  but  it 
was  weak,  ending,  as  did  for  the  most  part  the 
Gaelic  plays  that  began  to  be  written,  in  a 
piper  and  a  dance.  I  tried  to  get  rid  of  it 
afterwards  by  writing  The  Jackdaw  on  the  same 
idea,  but  in  which  I  make  humour  lay  the  ghost 
of  sentiment.  But  Twenty -five  may  yet  be  re- 


Play-writing  91 

written  and  come  to  a  little  life  of  its  own.  Spread- 
ing the  News  was  played  at  the  opening  of  the 
Abbey  Theatre,  December  27,  1904.  I  heard  it 
attacked  at  that  time  on  the  ground  that  Irish 
people  never  were  gossips  to  such  an  extent,  but  it 
has  held  its  own,  and  our  audiences  have  had  their 
education  as  well  as  writers  and  players,  and  know 
now  that  a  play  is  a  selection  not  a  photograph 
and  that  the  much  misquoted  "mirror  to  nature" 
was  not  used  by  its  author  or  any  good  play- writer 
at  all. 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  have  written  nothing  but 
these  short  comedies,  but  desire  for  experiment  is 
like  fire  in  the  blood,  and  I  had  had  from  the 
beginning  a  vision  of  historical  plays  being  sent 
by  us  through  all  the  counties  of  Ireland.  For  to 
have  a  real  success  and  to  come  into  the  life  of  the 
country,  one  must  touch  a  real  and  eternal  emo- 
tion, and  history  comes  only  next  to  religion  in 
our  country.  And  although  the  realism  of  our 
young  writers  is  taking  the  place  of  fantasy  and 
romance  in  the  cities,  I  still  hope  to  see  a  little 
season  given  up  every  year  to  plays  on  history 
and  in  sequence  at  the  Abbey,  and  I  think  schools 
and  colleges  may  ask  to  have  them  sent  and  played 


92  Our  Irish  Theatre 

in  their  halls,  as  a  part  of  the  day's  lesson.  I  began 
with  the  daring  and  lightheartedness  of  a  school- 
boy to  wri.e  a  tragedy  in  three  acts  upon  a  great 
personality,  Brian  the  High  King.  I  made  many 
bad  beginnings,  and  if  I  had  listened  to  Mr. 
Yeats's  advice  I  should  have  given  it  up,  but  I 
began  again  and  again  till  it  was  at  last  moulded 
in  at  least  a  possible  shape.  It  went  well  with 
our  audience.  There  was  some  enthusiasm  for  it, 
being  the  first  historical  play  we  had  produced. 
An  old  farmer  came  up  all  the  way  from  Kincora, 
the  present  Killaloe,  to  see  it,  and  I  heard  he  went 
away  sad  at  the  tragic  ending.  He  said,  "Brian 
ought  not  to  have  married  that  woman.  He 
should  have  been  content  with  a  nice,  quiet  girl 
from  his  own  district."  For  stormy  treacherous 
Gormleith  of  many  husbands  had  stirred  up  the 
battle  that  brought  him  to  his  death.  Dervorgilla 
I  wrote  at  a  time  when  circumstances  had  forced 
us  to  accept  an  English  stage-manager  for  the 
Abbey.  I  was  very  strongly  against  this. 
I  felt  as  if  I  should  be  spoken  of  some  day  as 
one  who  had  betrayed  her  country's  trust.  I 
wrote  so  vehemently  and  sadly  to  Mr.  Yeats 
about  it  that  he  might  have  been  moved  from 


Play-writing  93 

the  path  of  expediency,  which  I  now  think  was 
the  wise  one,  had  the  letter  reached  him  in  time, 
but  it  lay  with  others  in  the  Kiltartan  letter-box 
during  a  couple  of  weeks,  Christmas  time  or  the 
wintry  weather  giving  an  excuse  to  the  mail-car 
driver  whose  duty  it  is  to  clear  the  box  as  he 
nightly  passed  it  by.  So  he  wrote:  "I  think  we 
should  take  Vedrenne's  recommendation  unless 
we  have  some  strong  reason  to  the  contrary.  If 
the  man  is  not  Irish,  we  cannot  help  it.  If  the 
choice  is  between  filling  our  country's  stomach 
or  enlarging  its  brains  by  importing  precise 
knowledge,  I  am  for  scorning  its  stomach  for 
the  present.  ...  I  should  have  said  that  I 
told  Vedrenne  that  good  temper  is  essential,  and 
he  said  the  man  he  has  recommended  is  a  vege- 
tarian and  that  Bernard  Shaw  says  that  vegetables 
are  wonderful  for  the  temper." 

Mr.  Synge  had  something  of  my  feeling  about 
alien  management.      He  wrote  later:  "The  first 

show  of  was  deplorable.     It  came  out  as 

a  bastard  literary  pantomime,  put  on  with  many 
of  the  worst  tricks  of  the  English  stage.  That 
is  the  end  of  all  the  Samhain  principles  and  this 
new  tradition  that  we  were  to  lay  down!  I  felt 


94  Our  Irish  Theatre 

inclined  to  walk  out  of  the  Abbey  and  go  back 
no  more.     The  second  Saturday  was  much  less 

offensive.     is  doing  his  best  obviously  and 

he  may  perhaps  in  time  come  to  understand  our 
methods." 

To  come  back  to  play- writing,  I  find  in  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Yeats.  "You  will  be  amused  to  hear  that 
although,  or  perhaps  because,  I  had  evolved  out 
of  myself  'Mr.  Quirke'  as  a  conscious  philan- 
thropist, an  old  man  from  the  workhouse  told  me 
two  days  ago  that  he  had  been  a  butcher  of 
Quirke's  sort  and  was  quite  vainglorious  about  it, 
telling  me  how  many  staggery  sheep  and  the  like 
he  had  killed,  that  would,  if  left  to  die,  have  been 
useless  or  harmful.  'But  I  often  stuck  a  beast 
and  it  kicking  yet  and  life  in  it,  so  that  it  could 
do  no  harm  to  a  Christian  or  a  dog  or  an  animal.' " 
And  later:  "Yet  another  'Mr.  Quirke'  has  been 
to  see  me.  He  says  there  are  no  sick  pigs  now, 
because  they  are  all  sent  off  to  ...  no,  I  must  n't 
give  the  address.  Has  not  a  purgatory  been  im- 
agined where  writers  find  themselves  surrounded 
by  the  characters  they  have  created?" 

The  Canavans,  as  I  say  in  a  note  to  it,  was 


Play-writing  95 

"written  I  think  less  by  logical  plan  than  in  one 
of  those  moments  of  lightheartedness  that,  as  I 
think,  is  an  inheritance  from  my  great-grandmother 
Frances  Algoin,  a  moment  of  that  '  sudden  Glory, 
the  Passion  which  maketh  those  Grimaces  called 
Laughter.'  Some  call  it  farce,  some  like  it  the 
best  of  my  comedies.  This  very  day,  October 
1 6th,  I  have  been  sent  a  leaf  from  the  examination 
papers  of  the  new  University,  in  which  the  passage 
chosen  from  literature  to  'put  Irish  on*  is  that 
speech  of  Peter  Cana van's  beginning.  'Would 
any  one  now  think  it  a  thing  to  hang  a  man  for, 
that  he  had  striven  to  keep  himself  safe?" 

But  we  never  realise  our  dreams.  I  think  it 
was  The  Full  Moon  that  was  in  the  making  when 
I  wrote:  "I  am  really  getting  to  work  on  a  little 
comedy,  of  which  I  think  at  present  that  if  its  feet 
are  of  clay,  its  high  head  will  be  of  rubbed  gold, 
and  that  people  will  stop  and  dance  when  they 
hear  it  and  not  know  for  a  while  the  piping  was 
from  beyond  the  world!  But  no  doubt  if  it  ever 
gets  acted,  it  will  be  'what  Lady  Gregory  calls  a 
comedy  and  everybody  else,  a  farce!' 

The  Deliverer  is  a  crystallising  of  the  story,  as 
the  people  tell  it,  of  Parnell's  betrayal.  Only 


96  Our  Irish  Theatre 

yesterday  some  beggar  from  Crow  Lane,  the 
approach  to  Gort,  told  me  he  heard  one  who  had 
been  Parnell's  friend  speak  against  him  at  the 
time  of  the  :plit:  "He  brought  down  O'Shea's 
wife  on  him  and  said  he  was  not  fit  to  be  left  at 
large.  The  people  did  n't  like  that  and  they  hooted 
him  and  he  was  vexed  and  said  he  could  buy  up 
the  whole  of  them  for  half  a  glass  of  porter!"  I 
may  look  on  The  Rising  of  the  Moon  as  an  historical 
play,  as  my  history  goes,  for  the  scene  is  laid  in 
the  historical  time  of  the  rising  of  the  Fenians  in 
the  sixties.  But  the  real  fight  in  the  play  goes 
on  in  the  sergeant's  own  mind,  and  so  its  human 
side  makes  it  go  as  well  in  Oxford  or  London  or 
Chicago  as  in  Ireland  itself.  But  Dublin  Castle 
finds  in  it  some  smell  of  rebellion  and  has  put  us 
under  punishment  for  its  sins.  When  we  came 
back  from  America  last  March,  we  had  promised 
to  give  a  performance  on  our  first  day  in  Dublin 
and  The  Rising  of  the  Moon  was  one  of  the  plays 
announced.  But  the  stage  costumes  had  not  yet 
arrived,  and  we  sent  out  to  hire  some  from  a  depot 
from  which  the  cast  uniforms  of  the  Constabulary 
may  be  lent  out  to  the  companies  performing  at  the 
theatres — the  Royal,  the  Gaiety,  and  the  Queens. 


Play-writing  97 

But  our  messenger  came  back  empty-handed. 
An  order  had  been  issued  by  the  authorities  that 
"no  clothes  were  to  be  lent  to  the  Abbey  because 
TJie  Rising  of  the  Moon  was  derogatory  to  His 
Majesty's  forces."  So  we  changed  the  bill  and 
put  on  the  Workhouse  Ward,  in  which  happily  a 
quilt  and  blanket  cover  any  deficiency  of  clothes. 

We  wanted  to  put  on  some  of  Moli&re's  plays. 
They  seemed  akin  to  our  own.  But  when  one 
translation  after  another  was  tried,  it  did  not  seem 
to  carry,  to  "go  across  the  footlights."  So  I  tried 
putting  one  into  our  own  Kiltartan  dialect,  The 
Doctor  in  Spite  of  Himself,  and  it  went  very  well. 
I  went  on,  therefore,  and  translated  Scapin  and 
The  Miser.  Our  players  give  them  with  great 
spirit;  the  chief  parts — Scapin,  Harpagon,  and 
Frosine — could  hardly  be  bettered  in  any  theatre. 
I  confess  their  genius  does  not  suit  so  well  the 
sentimental  and  artificial  young  lovers. 

Mr.  Yeats  wrote  from  Paris:  "Dec.  19,  '08, 
I  saw  two  days  ago  a  performance  of  Scapin  at 
the  Odeon.  I  really  like  our  own  better.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  a  representation  so  traditional 
in  its  type  as  that  at  the  Odeon  has  got  too  far 
from  life,  as  we  see  it,  to  give  the  full  natural 

7 


98  Our  Irish  Theatre 

pleasure  of  comedy.  It  was  much  more  farcical 
than  anything  we  have  ever  done.  I  have  re- 
corded several  pieces  of  new  business  and  noted 
costumes  which  were  sometimes  amusing.  The 
acting  was  amazingly  skilful  and  everything  was 
expressive  in  the  extreme.  I  noticed  one  differ- 
ence between  this  production  and  ours  which 
almost  shocked  me,  so  used  am  I  to  our  own  ways. 
There  were  cries  of  pain  and  real  tears.  Scapin 
cried  when  his  master  threatened  him  in  the  first 
act,  and  the  old  man,  beaten  by  the  supposed  bully, 
was  obviously  very  sore.  I  have  always  noticed 
that  with  our  people  there  is  never  real  suffering 
even  in  tragedy.  One  felt  in  the  French  comedians 
an  undercurrent  of  passion — passion  which  our 
people  never  have.  I  think  we  give  in  comedy  a 
kind  of  fancif ulness  and  purity." 

It  is  the  existence  of  the  Theatre  that  has 
created  play-writing  among  us.  Mr.  Boyle  had 
\  _  written  stories,  and  only  turned  to  plays  when  he 
had  seen  our  performances  in  London.  Mr.  Colum 
claimed  to  have  turned  to  drama  for  our  sake, 
and  Mr.  Fitzmaurice,  Mr.  Ray,  and  Mr.  Murray — 
a  National  schoolmaster — would  certainly  not 
have  written  but  for  that  chance  of  having  their 


I 


Play-writing  99 

work  acted.  A.  E.  wrote  to  me:  "I  think  the 
Celtic  Theatre  will  emerge  all  right,  for  if  it  is  not 
a  manifest  intention  of  the  gods  that  there  should 
be  such  a  thing,  why  the  mania  for  writing  drama 
which  is  furiously  absorbing  our  Irish  writers?" 
And  again  almost  sadly:  "Would  it  be  incon- 
venient for  me  to  go  to  Coole  on  Monday  next  .  .  .  ? 
I  am  laying  in  a  stock  of  colours  and  boards  for 
painting  and  hope  the  weather  will  keep  up.  I 
hear  Synge  is  at  Coole,  and  as  an  astronomer  of 
human  nature,  calculating  the  probable  effect  of 
one  heavenly  body  on  another  which  is  invisible, 
I  suppose  W.  B.  Y.  is  at  drama  again  and  that 
the  summer  of  verse  is  given  over." 

I  asked  Mr.  Lennox  Robinson  how  he  had 
begun,  and  he  said  he  had  seen  our  players  in 
Cork,  and  had  gone  away  thinking  of  nothing  else 
than  to  write  a  play  for  us  to  produce.  He  wrote 
and  sent  us  The  Clancy  Name.  We  knew  nothing 
of  him,  but  saw  there  was  good  stuff  in  the  play, 
and  sent  it  back  with  suggestions  for  strengthening 
it  and  getting  rid  of  some  unnecessary  characters. 
He  altered  it  and  we  put  it  on.  Then  he  wrote  a 
three-act  play  The  Cross  Roads,  but  after  he  had 
seen  it  played  he  took  away  the  first  act,  making  it 


ioo  Our  Irish  Theatre 

a  far  better  play,  for  it  is  by  seeing  one's  work 
on  the  stage  that  one  learns  best.  Then  he 
wrote  Harvest  with  three  strong  acts,  and  this 
year  Patriots,  which  has  gone  best  of  all. 

One  of  our  heaviest  tasks  had  been  reading  the 
plays  sent  in.  For  some  years  Mr.  Yeats  and  I 
read  every  one  of  these;  but  now  a  committee 
reports  on  them  first  and  sends  back  those  that 
are  quite  impossible  with  a  short  printed  notice : 

"The  Reading  Committee  of  the  National 
Theatre  Society  regret  to  say  that  the  enclosed 
play,  which  you  kindly  submitted  to  them,  is, 
for  various  reasons,  not  suitable  for  production 
by  the  Abbey  Company." 

If  a  play  is  not  good  enough  to  produce,  but 
yet  shows  some  skill  in  construction  or  dialogue, 
we  send  another  printed  form  written  by  Mr. 
Yeats: 

"ADVICE   TO   PLAYWRIGHTS  WHO  ARE   SENDING 
PLAYS  TO  THE  ABBEY,  DUBLIN 

The  Abbey  Theatre  is  a  subsidised  theatre 
with  an  educational  object.  It  will,  therefore, 
be  useless  as  a  rule  to  send  it  plays  intended  as 


Play-writing  101 

popular  entertainments  and  that  alone,  or  origi- 
nally written  for  performance  by  some  popular 
actor  at  the  popular  theatres.  A  play  to  be 
suitable  for  performance  at  the  Abbey  should 

I  contain  some  criticism   of  life,  founded  on  the 
experience  or  personal  observation  of  the  writer, 

1  or  some  vision  of  life,  of  Irish  life  by  preference, 
important  from  its  beauty  or  from  some  excellence 

I  of  style;  and  this  intellectual  quality  is  not  more 
necessary  to  tragedy  than  to  the  gayest  comedy. 
"  We  do  not  desire  propagandist  plays,  nor  plays 
written  mainly  to  serve  some  obvious  moral 
purpose;  for  art  seldom  concerns  itself  with  those 
interests  or  opinions  that  can  be  defended  by 
argument,  but  with  realities  of  emotion  and  char- 
acter that  become  self-evident  when  made  vivid 
to  the  imagination. 

"  The  dramatist  should  also  banish  from  his 
mind  the  thought  that  there  are  some  ingredients, 
the  love-making  of  the  popular  stage  for  instance, 
especially  fitted  to  give  dramatic  pleasure;  for 
any  knot  of  events,  where  there  is  passionate 
emotion  and  clash  of  will,  can  be  made  the  subject 
matter  of  a  play,  and  the  less  like  a  play  it  is  at 
the  first  sight  the  better  play  may  come  of  it  in 


IO2  Our  Irish  Theatre 

the  end.  Young  writers  should  remember  that 
they  must  get  all  their  effects  from  the  logical 
expression  of  their  subject,  and  not  by  the  ad- 
dition of  extraneous  incidents ;  and  that  a  work  of 
art  can  have  but  one  subject.  A  work  of  art, 
though  it  must  have  the  effect  of  nature,  is  art 
because  it  is  not  nature,  as  Goethe  said:  and  it 
must  possess  a  unity  unlike  the  accidental  pro- 
fusion of  nature. 

"The  Abbey  Theatre  is  continually  sent  plays 
which  show  that  their  writers  have  not  understood 
that  the  attainment  of  this  unity  by  what  is 
usually  a  long  shaping  and  reshaping  of  the  plot, 
is  the  principal  labour  of  the  dramatist,  and  not 
the  writing  of  the  dialogue. 

"  Before  sending  plays  of  any  length,  writers 
would  often  save  themselves  some  trouble  by 
sending  a  'Scenario,'  or  scheme  of  the  plot, 
together  with  one  completely  written  act  and 
getting  the  opinion  of  the  Reading  Committee  as 
to  its  suitability  before  writing  the  whole  play. 

I  find  a  note  from  Mr.  Yeats:  "Some  writer 
offers  us  a  play  which  '  unlike  those  at  the  Abbey, ' 
he  says,  is  so  constructed  as  to  admit  any  topic 


Play-writing  103 

or  a  scene  laid  in  any  country.  It  will  under 
the  circumstances,  he  says,  'do  good  to  all.'  I 
am  sending  him  'Advice  to  Playwrights.' 

The  advice  was  not  always  gratefully  received. 
I  wrote  to  Mr.  Yeats:  "Such  an  absurd  letter 
in  the  Cork  Sportsman,  suggesting  that  you  make 
all  other  dramatists  rewrite  their  plays  to  hide 
your  own  idiosyncrasy!" 

If  a  play  shows  real  promise  and  a  mind  behind 
it,  we  write  personally  to  the  author,  making 
criticisms  and  suggestions.  We  were  accused  for 
a  while  of  smothering  the  work  of  young  writers 
in  order  that  we  might  produce  our  own,  but  time 
has  done  away  with  that  libel,  and  we  are  very 
proud  of  the  school  of  drama  that  has  come  into 
being  through  the  creation  of  our  Theatre.  We 
were  advised  also  to  put  on  more  popular  work, 
work  that  would  draw  an  audience  for  the  moment 
from  being  topical,  or  because  the  author  had 
friends  in  some  league.  But  we  went  on  giving 
what  we  thought  good  until  it  became  popular. 
I  wrote  once,  thinking  we  had  yielded  over  much : 
"I  am  sorry 's  play  has  been  so  coldly  re- 
ceived (a  play  that  has  since  become  a  favourite 
one),  but  I  think  it  is  partly  our  own  fault.  It 


104  Our  Irish  Theatre 

would  have  got  a  better  welcome  a  year  ago.  We 
have  been  humouring  our  audience  instead  of 
educating  it,  which  is  the  work  we  ought  to  do. 

It  is  not  only  giving  so  much and ,  it  is 

the  want  of  good  work  pressed  on,  and  I  believe 
the  want  of  verse,  which  they  respect  anyhow. 
...  I  think  the  pressing  on  of  Synge's  two  plays 
the  best  thing  we  can  do  for  this  season.  We  have 
a  great  backing  now  in  his  reputation.  In  the  last 
battle,  when  we  cried  up  his  genius,  we  were  sup- 
posed to  do  it  for  our  own  interest.  ...  I  only 
read  Gerothwohl's  speech  after  you  left,  and 
thought  that  sentence  most  excellent  about  the 
theatre  he  was  connected  with  being  intended 
'for  art  and  a  thinking  Democracy.'  It  is  just 
what  we  set  out  to  do,  and  now  we  are  giving  in 
to  stupidity  in  a  Democracy.  I  think  the  sen- 
tence should  be  used  when  we  can." 

One  at  least  of  the  many  gloomy  prophecies 
written  to  Mr.  Yeats  at  some  time  of  trouble  has 
not  come  true:  "I  am  giving  you  the  situation 
as  it  appears  to  me.  Remember  there  is  - 

and and An  amalgamation  of  all  the 

dissentients  with  a  Gaelic  dramatic  society  would 
leave  Synge,  Lady  Gregory,  and  Boyle  with  your- 


Play-writing  105 

self,  and  none  of  these  have  drawing  power  in 
Dublin.  .  .  .  You  who  initiated  the  theatre 
movement  in  Ireland,  will  be  out  of  it." 

Neither  Mr.  Yeats  nor  I  take  the  writing  of  our 
plays  lightly.  We  work  hard  to  get  clearly  both 
fable  and  idea.  The  Travelling  Man  was  first  my 
idea  and  then  we  wrote  it  together.  Then  Mr. 
Yeats  wrote  a  variant  of  it  as  a  Pagan  play,  The 
Black  Horse,  and  to  this  we  owe  the  song,  "There  's 
many  a  strong  farmer  whose  heart  would  break 
in  two."  It  did  not  please  him  however,  and  then 
I  worked  it  out  in  my  own  way.  I  wrote  to  him : 
"  I  am  not  sure  about  your  idea,  for  if  the  Stranger 
wanted  the  child  to  be  content  with  the  things 
near  him,  why  did  he  make  the  image  of  the  Gar- 
den of  Paradise  and  ride  to  it?  I  am  more  in- 
clined to  think  the  idea  is  the  soul  having  once 
seen  the  Christ,  the  Divine  Essence,  must  always 
turn  back  to  it  again.  One  feels  sure  the  child 
will  though  all  its  life.  And  the  mother,  with  all 
her  comforts,  has  never  been  quite  satisfied, 
because  she  wants  to  see  the  Christ  again.  But 
the  earthly  side  of  her  built  up  the  dresser,  and 
the  child  will  build  up  other  earthly  veils;  yet 
never  be  quite  satisfied.  What  do  you  think?" 


io6  Our  Irish  Theatre 

And  again:  "I  am  trying  so  hard  to  get  to 
work  on  a  play  and  first  excuses  came — Thursday 
headache;  now  I  feel  myself  longing  to  take  over 
the  saw-mill,  which  has  stopped  with  the  head 
sawyer's  departure  and  only  wants  a  steady  super- 
intendent; or  to  translate  L'Avare  or  the  Irish 
fairy  tales,  or  anything  rather  than  creative 
work!  You  feel  just  the  same  with  the  Theatre; 
anything  that  is  more  or  less  external  administra- 
tion is  so  easy!  Why  were  we  not  born  to  be 
curators  of  museums?" 

At  another  time  he  writes:  "Every  day  up  to 
this  I  have  worked  at  my  play  in  the  greatest 
gloom  and  this  morning  half  the  time  was  the 
worst  yet — all  done  against  the  grain.  I  had 
half  decided  to  throw  it  aside,  till  I  had  got  back 
my  belief  in  myself  with  some  sheer  poetry.  When 
I  began,  I  got  some  philosophy  and  my  mind 
became  abundant  and  therefore  cheerful.  If  I 
can  make  it  obey  my  own  definition  of  tragedy, 
passion  defined  by  motives,  I  shall  be  all  right. 
I  was  trying  for  too  much  character.  If,  as  I 
think  you  said,  farce  is  comedy  with  character 
left  out,  melodrama  is,  I  believe,  tragedy  with 
passion  left  out." 


Play-writing  107 

As  to  our  staging  of  plays,  in  1903,  the  costumes 
for  The  Hour-Glass  were  designed  by  my  son, 
and  from  that  time  a  great  deal  of  the  work  was 
done  by  him.  The  Hour-Glass  dresses  were  purple 
played  against  a  green  curtain.  It  was  our  first 
attempt  at  the  decorative  staging  long  demanded 
by  Mr.  Yeats.  Mr.  Yeats  says,  in  Samhain,  1905, 
"Our  staging  of  Kincora,  the  work  of  Mr.  Robert 
Gregory,  was  beautiful,  with  a  high  grave  dignity 
and  that  strangeness  which  Ben  Jonson  thought 
to  be  a  part  of  all  excellent  beauty." 

The  first  acts  of  the  play  are  laid  in  King  Brian's 
great  hall  at  Kincora.  It  was  hung  with  green 
curtains,  there  were  shields  embossed  with  designs 
in  gold  upon  the  walls,  and  heavy  mouldings  over 
the  doors.  The  last  act  showed  Brian's  tent  at 
Clontarf ;  a  great  orange  curtain  filled  the  back- 
ground, and  it  is  hard  to  forget  the  effect  at  the 
end  of  three  figures  standing  against  it,  in  green, 
in  red,  in  grey.  For  a  front  scene  there  was  a  cur- 
tain— we  use  it  still  in  its  dimness  and  age — with 
a  pattern  of  tree  stems  interlaced  and  of  leaves 
edged  with  gold.  This  was  the  most  costly  staging 
we  had  yet  attempted :  it  came  with  costumes  to 
£30.  A  great  deal  of  unpaid  labour  went  into  it. 


io8  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Mr.  Fay  discovered  a  method  of  making  papier 
mache",  a  chief  part  of  which  seemed  to  be  the 
boiling  down  of  large  quantities  of  our  old  pro- 
grammes, for  the  mouldings  and  for  the  shields. 
I  have  often  seen  the  designer  himself  on  his  knees 
by  a  great  iron  pot — one  we  use  in  cottage  scenes 
—dying  pieces  of  sacking,  or  up  high  on  a  ladder 
painting  his  forests  or  leaves.  His  staging  of  The 
Shadowy  Waters  was  almost  more  beautiful;  the 
whole  stage  is  the  sloping  deck  of  a  galley,  blue 
and  dim,  the  sails  and  dresses  are  green,  the 
ornaments  all  of  copper.  He  staged  for  us  also, 
for  love  of  his  art  and  of  the  work,  my  own  plays, 
The  White  Cockade,  The  Image,  Dervorgilla,  and 
Mr.  Yeats's  On  Bailees  Strand  with  the  great 
bronze  gates  used  in  other  plays  as  well,  in  Lord 
Dunsany's  Glittering  Gate  and  in  The  Countess 
Cathleen.  It  was  by  him  the  scenery  for  Mr. 
Yeats's  Deirdre  was  designed  and  painted,  and  for 
Synge's  Deirdre  of  the  Sorrows.  I  am  proud  to 
think  how  much  "excellent  beauty"  he  has 
brought  to  the  help  of  our  work. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  FIGHT  OVER   "THE  PLAYBOY " 

WHEN  Synge's  Shadow  of  the  Glen  was  first 
played  in  the  Molesworth  Hall  in  1903,  some  attacks 
were  made  on  it  by  the  Sinn  Fein  weekly  news- 
paper. In  the  play  the  old  husband  pretends  to  be 
dead,  the  young  wife  listens  to  the  offers  of  a  young 
farmer,  who  asks  her  to  marry  him  in  the  chapel 
of  Rathvanna  when  "  Himself  will  be  quiet  a  while 
in  the  Seven  Churches."  The  old  man  jumps  up, 
drives  her  out  of  the  house,  refusing  to  make  peace, 
and  she  goes  away  with  a  tramp,  a  stranger  from 
the  roads.  Synge  was  accused  of  having  borrowed 
the  story  from  another  country,  from  "a  decadent 
Roman  source, "  the  story  of  the  widow  of  Ephesus, 
and  given  it  an  Irish  dress.  He  declared  he  had 
been  told  this  story  in  the  West  of  Ireland.  It  had 
already  been  given  in  Curtin's  tales.  Yet  the 
same  cry  has  been  made  from  time  to  time.  But  it 
happened  last  winter  I  was  at  Newhaven,  Massa- 

109 


no  Our  Irish  Theatre 

chusetts,  with  the  Company,  and  we  were  asked 
to  tea  at  the  house  of  a  Yale  professor.  There 
were  a  good  many  people  there,  and  I  had  a  few 
words  with  each,  and  as  they  spoke  of  the  interest 
taken  in  the  plays,  a  lady  said:  "My  old  nurse 
has  been  reading  The  Shadow  of  the  Glen,  but  she 
says  it  is  but  a  hearth  tale ;  she  had  heard  it  long 
ago  in  Ireland. "  Then  others  came  to  talk  to  me, 
and  next  day  I  went  on  to  speak  at  Smith  College. 
It  was  not  till  later  I  remembered  the  refusal  to 
take  Synge's  word,  and  that  now  Shadow  of  the 
Glen  had  been  called  a  "hearth  tale."  I  was 
sorry  I  had  not  asked  for  the  old  woman's  words  to 
be  put  down,  but  I  could  not  remember  among  so 
many  strangers  who  it  was  that  had  told  me  of  them. 
But  a  little  later,  in  New  York,  one  of  the  younger 
Yale  professors  came  round  during  the  plays  to  the 
little  sitting-room  at  the  side  of  the  stage  at  the 
Maxine  Elliott  Theatre  where  I  received  friends. 
I  asked  him  to  find  out  what  I  wanted  to  know,  and 
after  a  while  I  was  sent  the  words  of  the  old  woman, 
who  is  a  nurse  in  a  well-known  philanthropic  family : 
"  Indeed,  Miss,  I  Ve  heard  that  story  many  's  the 
time.  It 's  what  in  the  old  country  we  call  a 
fireside  story.  In  the  evening  the  neighbours 


The  Fight  over  "The  Playboy"    in 

would  be  coming  in  and  sitting  about  the  big  fire, 
in  a  great  stone  chimney  like  you  know,  and  the 
big  long  hearthstone  in  front,  and  the  men  would 
be  stretching  out  on  their  backs  on  the  stones  and 
telling  stories  just  the  like  of  that;  how  that  an 
old  man  had  a  young  wife,  and  he  began  to  fear  she 
was  n't  true  to  him,  and  he  got  himself  into  the 
bed  and  a  big  thorn  stick  with  him,  and  made  out  to 
be  dead,  and  when  his  wife  was  watching  beside 
him  in  the  night  and  thinking  him  safe  dead,  the 
other  man  came  in  and  began  talking  to  her  to 
make  her  marry  him ;  and  himself  jumped  up  out  of 
the  bed  and  gave  them  the  great  beating,  just  the 
same  as  in  the  book,  Miss,  only  it  reads  more  nice 
and  refined  like.  Oh,  there  were  many  of  those 
fireside  stories  they  'd  tell!" 

But  the  grumbling  against  this  play  was  only 
in  the  papers  and  in  letters,  and  it  soon  died  out, 
although  I  find  in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Yeats  before 
the  opening  of  the  Abbey  :  "The  Independent 
has  waked  up  and  attacked  us  again  with  a  note  and 
a  letter  of  a  threatening  nature  warning  us  not  to 
perform  Synge  again."  The  Well  of  the  Saints 
was  let  pass  without  much  comment,  though  we 
had  very  small  audiences  for  it,  for  those  were 


ii2  Our  Irish  Theatre 

early  days  at  the  Abbey.  It  was  another  story 
when  in  1907  The  Playboy  of  the  Western  World 
was  put  on.  There  was  a  very  large  audience  on 
the  first  night,  a  Saturday,  January  26th.  Synge 
was  there,  but  Mr.  Yeats  was  giving  a  lecture  in 
Scotland.  The  first  act  got  its  applause  and  the 
second,  though  one  felt  the  audience  were  a  little 
puzzled,  a  little  shocked  at  the  wild  language. 
Near  the  end  of  the  third  act  there  was  some  hissing. 
We  had  sent  a  telegram  to  Mr.  Yeats  after  the 
first  act — "Play  great  success";  but  at  the  end 
we  sent  another — "Audience  broke  up  in  disorder 
at  the  word  shift. "  For  that  plain  English  word 
was  one  of  those  objected  to,  and  even  the  papers, 
in  commenting,  followed  the  example  of  some 
lady  from  the  country,  who  wrote  saying  "the 
word  omitted  but  understood  was  one  she  would 
blush  to  use  even  when  she  was  alone. " 

On  the  Monday  night  Riders  to  the  Sea,  which 
was  the  first  piece,  went  very  well  indeed.  But  in 
the  interval  after  it,  I  noticed  on  one  side  of  the 
pit  a  large  group  of  men  sitting  together,  not  a 
woman  among  them.  I  told  Synge  I  thought  it  a 
sign  of  some  organised  disturbance  and  he  tele- 
phoned to  have  the  police  at  hand.  The  first  part 


The  Fight  over  "The  Playboy"   113 

of  the  first  act  went  undisturbed.  Then  suddenly 
an  uproar  began.  The  group  of  men  I  had  noticed 
booed,  hooted,  blew  tin  trumpets.  The  editor  of 
one  of  the  Dublin  weekly  papers  was  sitting  next 
to  me,  and  I  asked  him  to  count  them.  He  did 
so  and  said  there  were  forty  making  the  disturb- 
ance. It  was  impossible  to  hear  a  word  of  the 
play.  The  curtain  came  down  for  a  minute,  but 
I  went  round  and  told  the  actors  to  go  on  playing 
to  the  end,  even  if  not  a  word  could  be  heard. 
The  police,  hearing  the  uproar,  began  to  file  in, 
but  I  thought  the  disturbers  might  tire  themselves 
out  if  left  alone,  or  be  satisfied  with  having  made 
their  protest,  and  I  asked  them  to  go  outside  but 
stay  within  call  in  case  of  any  attempt  being 
made  to  injure  the  players  or  the  stage.  There 
were  very  few  people  in  the  stalls,  but  among  them 
was  Lord  Walter  Fitzgerald,  grand-nephew  of  the 
patriot,  the  adored  Lord  Edward.  He  stood  up 
and  asked  that  he  and  others  in  the  audience 
might  be  allowed  to  hear  the  play,  but  this  leave 
was  refused.  The  disturbance  lasted  to  the  end  of 
the  evening,  not  one  word  had  been  heard  after 
the  first  ten  minutes. 

Next  day  Mr.  Yeats  arrived  and  took  over  the 


H4  Our  Irish  Theatre 

management  of  affairs.  Meanwhile  I  had  asked 
a  nephew  at  Trinity  College  to  come  and  bring  a 
few  fellow  athletes,  that  we  might  be  sure  of  some 
ablebodied  helpers  in  case  of  an  attack  on  the 
stage.  But,  alas!  the  very  sight  of  them  was  as 
a  match  to  the  resin  of  the  pit,  and  a  roar  of  de- 
fiance was  flung  back, — townsman  against  gowns- 
man, hereditary  enemies  challenging  each  other 
as  they  are  used  to  do  when  party  or  political 
processions  march  before  the  railings  on  College 
Green.  But  no  iron  railings  divided  pit  and  stalls, 
some  scuffles  added  to  the  excitement,  and  it  was 
one  of  our  defenders  at  the  last  who  was  carried 
out  bodily  by  the  big  actor  who  was  playing 
Christy  Mahon's  slain  father,  and  by  Synge  him- 
self. 

I  had  better  help  from  another  nephew.  A 
caricature  of  the  time  shows  him  in  evening  dress 
with  unruffled  shirt  cuffs,  leading  out  disturbers 
of  the  peace.  For  Hugh  Lane  would  never 
have  worked  the  miracle  of  creating  that  wonder- 
ful gallery  at  sight  of  which  Dublin  is  still  rubbing 
its  eyes,  if  he  had  not  known  that  in  matters  of 
art  the  many  count  less  than  the  few.  I  am  not 
sure  that  in  the  building  of  our  nation  he  may  not 


The  Fight  over  "The  Playboy"   115 

have  laid  the  most  lasting  stone;  no  fear  of  a 
charge  of  nepotism  will  scare  me  from  "the  noble 
pleasure  of  praising,"  and  so  I  claim  a  place  for 
his  name  above  the  thirty,  among  the  chief,  of 
our  own  mighty  men. 

There  was  a  battle  of  a  week.  Every  night 
protestors  with  their  trumpets  came  and  raised 
a  din.  Every  night  the  police  carried  some  of 
them  off  to  the  police  courts.  Every  afternoon 
the  papers  gave  reports  of  the  trial  before  a  magis- 
trate who  had  not  heard  or  read  the  play  and  who 
insisted  on  being  given  details  of  its  incidents  by 
the  accused  and  by  the  police. 

We  held  on,  as  we  had  determined,  for  the  week 
during  which  we  had  announced  the  play  would  be 
acted.  It  was  a  definite  fight  for  freedom  from 
mob  censorship.  A  part  of  the  new  National 
movement  had  been,  and  rightly,  an  attack  on  the 
stage  Irishman,  the  vulgar  and  unnatural  butt 
given  on  the  English  stage.  We  had  the  destroy- 
ing of  that  scarecrow  in  mind  among  other  things 
in  setting  up  our  Theatre.  But  the  societies  were 
impatient.  They  began  to  dictate  here  and  there 
what  should  or  should  not  be  played.  Mr. 
Colum's  plays  and  Mr.  Boyle's  were  found  too 


n6  Our  Irish  Theatre 

harsh  in  their  presentment  of  life.  I  see  in  a 
letter  about  a  tour  we  were  arranging :  "  Limerick 
has  not  yet  come  to  terms.  They  have  asked  for 
copies  of  proposed  plays  that  they  may  '  place  same 
before  the  branch  of  the  Gaelic  League  there.'" 

At  Liverpool  a  priest  had  arranged  an  enter- 
tainment. The  audience  did  not  like  one  of  the 
plays  and  hooted.  The  priest  thereupon  appeared 
and  apologised,  saying  he  would  take  the  play  off. 
In  Dublin,  Mr.  Martin  Harvey,  an  old  favourite, 
had  been  forced  to  take  off  after  the  first  night  a 
little  play  because  its  subject  was  Irish  belief  in 
witchcraft.  The  widow  of  a  writer  of  Irish  plays 
that  had  been  fairly  popular  was  picketed  through 
Ireland  with  her  company  and  was  nearly  ruined, 
no  one  being  allowed  to  enter  the  doors.  Finally, 
at,  I  think,  Athlone,  she  was  only  allowed  to  pro- 
duce a  play  after  it  had  been  cut  and  rearranged 
by  a  local  committee,  made  up  of  the  shopkeepers 
of  the  town.  We  would  not  submit  Mr.  Synge's 
work  or  any  of  the  work  we  put  on  to  such  a  test, 
nor  would  we  allow  any  part  of  our  audience  to 
make  itself  final  judge  through  preventing  others 
from  hearing  and  judging  for  themselves.  We  have 
been  justified,  for  Synge's  name  has  gone  round 


The  Fight  over  ''The  Playboy"    117 

the  world,  and  we  should  have  been  ashamed  for 
ever  if  we  had  not  insisted  on  a  hearing  for  his 
most  important  work.  But,  had  it  been  a  far 
inferior  play  and  written  by  some  young  writer 
who  had  never  been  heard  of,  we  should  have  had 
to  do  the  same  thing.  If  we  had  been  obliged  to 
give  in  to  such  organised  dictation,  we  should  of 
necessity  have  closed  the  Theatre.  I  respected 
the  opinion  of  those  among  that  group  who  were 
sincere.  They,  not  used  to  works  of  imagination 
and  wild  fantasy,  thought  the  play  a  libel  on  the 
Irish  countryman,  who  has  not  put  parricide  upon 
his  list  of  virtues;  they  thought  the  language  too 
violent  or  it  might  be  profane.  The  methods  were 
another  thing;  when  the  tin  trumpets  were  blown 
and  brandished,  we  had  to  use  the  same  loud 
methods  and  call  in  the  police.  We  lost  some  of 
our  audience  by  the  fight;  the  pit  was  weak  for  a 
while,  but  one  after  another  said,  "There  is  no 
other  theatre  to  go  to,"  and  came  back.  The 
stalls,  curiously,  who  appeared  to  approve  of  our 
stand,  were  shy  of  us  for  a  long  time.  They  got 
an  idea  we  were  fond  of  noise  and  quarrels.  That 
was  our  second  battle,  and  even  at  the  end  of  the 
week,  we  had  won  it. 


ii8  Our  Irish  Theatre 

An  organiser  of  agriculture,  sent  to  County  Clare, 
reported  that  the  District  Councils  there  were 
engaged  in  passing  resolutions,  "Against  the 
\  French  Government  and  The  Playboy."  Mrs. 
Coppinger  in  The  Image  says,  on  some  such 
occasion,  "Believe  me  there  is  not  a  Board  or  a 
Board  Room  west  of  the  Shannon  but  will  have  a 
comrade  cry  put  out  between  this  and  the  Feast  of 
Pentecost."  And  anyhow  in  our  case  some 
such  thing  happened. 

But  Synge's  fantasy  is  better  understood  now 
even  by  those  "  who  have  never  walked  in  Apollo's 
garden,"  and  The  Playboy  holds  its  place  in  the 
repertory  of  the  Abbey  from  year  to  year. 


CHAPTER  V 

SYNGE 

//  is  October  now  and  leaves  have  fallen  from 
the  branches  of  the  big  copper-beech  in  the  garden; 
I  saw  the  stars  shining  through  them  last  night. 
You  were  asleep  then,  but  in  the  daytime  you  can 
see  the  sky  all  blue  through  their  bareness.  And 
the  dry  red  heaps  under  them  are  noisy  when 
pheasants,  looking  for  mast,  hurry  away  as  you 
come  calling,  running,  down  the  hill.  The  smooth 
trunk  of  the  tree  that  was  in  shadow  all  through 
the  summer  time  shines  out  now  like  silver.  You 
stop  to  look  at  letters  cut  in  the  bark.  You  can 
read  most  of  them  yourself.  You  came  under  the 
wide  boughs  a  few  weeks  ago,  when  a  soldier  who 
has  gone  now  to  set  in  order  all  the  British  dominions 
over  sea,  carved  that  "Ian  H."  far  out  of  your 
reach,  as  high  as  his  own  high  head.  There  is 
another  name  higher  again,  for  the  painter  who  cut 
that  "A  "  and  that  "  J"  climbed  up  to  write  it  again 

119 


i2o  Our  Irish  Theatre 

where  we  could  not  follow  him,  higher  than  the 
birds  make  their  nests.  There  are  letters  of  other 
names,  "G.  B.  S."  and  "W.  B.  F."  Strangers 
know  the  names  they  stand  for;  they  are  easily 
known.  But  there  to  the  north  those  letters,  "J.  M. 
S.,1'  stand  for  a  name  that  was  not  known  at  all  at 
the  time  it  was  cut  there,  a  few  years  before  you  were 
born. 

The  days  are  getting  short  and  in  the  evening, 
when  you  ask  me  for  something  to  paint  or  to  scribble 
on,  I  sometimes  give  you  one  from  a  bundle  of  old 
sheets  of  paper,  with  three  names  printed  at  the 
head  of  it,  with  the  picture  of  a  woman  and  a  dog. 
The  names  are  those  of  three  friends  who  worked 
together  for  a  while:  Yeats' s  name  and  my  own  and 
the  name  of  John  Millington  Synge. 

I  first  saw  Synge  in  the  north  island  of  Aran. 
I  was  staying  there,  gathering  folk-lore,  talking  to 
the  people,  and  felt  quite  angry  when  I  passed 
another  outsider  walking  here  and  there,  talking 
also  to  the  people.  I  was  jealous  of  not  being  alone 
on  the  island  among  the  fishers  and  sea-weed 
gatherers.  I  did  not  speak  to  the  stranger,  nor 
was  he  inclined  to  speak  to  me.  He  also  looked  on 


J.  M.  Synge 

From  a  drawing  by  Robert  C.regory  in  1904 


Synge  121 

me  as  an  intruder.  I  heard  only  his  name.  But 
a  little  later  in  the  summer  Mr.  Yeats,  who  was 
staying  with  us  at  Coole,  had  a  note  from  Synge, 
saying  he  was  in  Aran.  They  had  met  in  Paris. 
Yeats  wrote  of  him  from  there:  "He  is  really  a 
most  excellent  man.  He  lives  in  a  little  room 
which  he  has  furnished  himself;  he  is  his  own 
servant.  He  works  very  hard  and  is  learning 
Breton;  he  will  be  a  very  useful  scholar. " 

I  asked  him  here  and  we  became  friends  at 
once.  I  said  of  him  in  a  letter:  "  One  never  has 
to  rearrange  one's  mind  to  talk  to  him. "  He  was 
quite  direct,  sincere,  and  simple,  not  only  a  good 
listener  but  too  good  a  one,  not  speaking  much  in 
general  society.  His  fellow  guests  at  Coole 
always  liked  him,  and  he  was  pleasant  and  genial 
with  them,  though  once,  when  he  had  come 
straight  from  life  on  a  wild  coast,  he  confessed  that 
a  somewhat  warlike  English  lady  in  the  house 
was  "civilisation  in  its  most  violent  form. "  There 
could  be  a  sharp  edge  to  his  wit,  as  when  he  said 
that  a  certain  actress  (not  Mrs.  Campbell"),  whose 
modern  methods  he  disliked,  had  turned  Yeats' 
Dcirdre  into  The  Second  Mrs.  Conchubar.  And 
once,  when  awakened  from  the  anaesthetic  after 


122  Our  Irish  Theatre 

one  of  those  hopeless  operations,  the  first  words 
that  could  be  understood  were,  "Those  damned 
English  can't  even  swear  without  vulgarity. " 

He  sent  me  later,  when  we  had  been  long  working 
at  the  Theatre,  some  reviews  of  his  work  from  a 
German  newspaper.  "  What  gives  me  a  sympathy 
with  this  new  man  is  that  he  does  not  go  off  into 
sentimentality.  Behind  this  legend  I  see  a 
laughing  face;  then  he  raises  his  eyebrows  in  irony 
and  laughs  again.  Herr  Synge  may  not  be  a 
dramatist,  he  may  not  be  a  great  poet,  but  he  has 
something  in  him  that  I  like,  a  thing  that  for 
many  good  Germans  is  a  book  with  seven  seals, 
that  is,  Humour."  He  writes  a  note  with  this, 
"I  'd  like  to  quote  about  'Humour,'  but  I  don't 
•want  to  tell  Dublin  I  'm  maybe  no  dramatist; 
that  would  n't  do. " 

Of  his  other  side,  Mr.  J.  B.  Yeats  wrote  to  me: 
"Coleridge  said  that  all  Shakespeare's  characters 
from  Macbeth  to  Dogberry  are  ideal  realities,  his 
comedies  are  poetry  as  an  unlimited  jest,  and  his 
tragedies  'poetry  in  deepest  earnest.'  Had  he 
seen  Synge's  plays  he  would  have  called  them, 
'  Poetry  in  unlimited  sadness. ' ' 

While  with  us,  he  hardly  looked  at  a  newspaper. 


Synge  123 

He  seemed  to  look  on  politics  and  reforms  with  a 
sort  of  tolerant  indifference,  though  he  spoke  once 
of  something  that  had  happened  as  "the  greatest 
tragedy  since  ParnelTs  death. "  He  told  me  that 
the  people  of  the  play  he  was  writing  often  seemed 
the  real  people  among  whom  he  lived,  and  I  think 
his  dreamy  look  came  from  this.  He  spent  a  good 
deal  of  time  wandering  in  our  woods  where  many 
shy  creatures  still  find  their  homes — marten  cats 
and  squirrels  and  otters  and  badgers, — and  by  the 
lake  where  wild  swans  come  and  go.  He  told  Mr. 
Yeats  he  had  given  up  wearing  the  black  clothes 
he  had  worn  for  a  while,  when  they  were  a  fashion 
with  writers,  thinking  they  were  not  in  harmony 
with  nature,  which  is  so  sparing  in  the  use  of  the 
harsh  colour  of  the  raven. 

Simple  things  always  pleased  him.  In  his  long 
illness  in  a  Dublin  hospital  where  I  went  to  see 
him  every  day,  he  would  ask  for  every  detail  of  a 
search  I  was  making  for  a  couple  of  Irish  terrier 
puppies  to  bring  home,  and  laugh  at  my  adventures 
again  and  again.  And  when  I  described  to  him 
the  place  where  I  had  found  the  puppies  at  last,  a 
little  house  in  a  suburb,  with  a  long  garden  stretch- 
ing into  wide  fields,  with  a  view  of  the  hills  beyond, 


124  Our  Irish  Theatre 

he  was  excited  and  said  that  it  was  just  such  a 
Dublin  home  as  he  wanted,  and  as  he  had  been 
sure  was  somewhere  to  be  found.  He  asked  me 
at  this  time  about  a  village  on  the  Atlantic  coast, 
where  I  had  stayed  for  a  while,  over  a  post-office, 
and  where  he  hoped  he  might  go  for  his  convales- 
cence instead  of  to  Germany,  as  had  been  arranged 
for  him.  I  said,  in  talking,  that  I  felt  more  and 
more  the  time  wasted  that  was  not  spent  in  Ire- 
land, and  he  said:  "That  is  just  my  feeling." 

The  rich,  abundant  speech  of  the  people  was  a 
delight  to  him.  When  my  Cuchulain  of  Muir- 
themme  came  out,  he  said  to  Mr.  Yeats  he  had 
been  amazed  to  find  in  it  the  dialect  he  had  been 
trying  to  master.  He  wrote  to  me:  "Your 
Cuchulain  is  a  part  of  my  daily  bread."  I  say 
this  with  a  little  pride,  for  I  was  the  first  to  use 
the  Irish  idiom  as  it  is  spoken,  with  intention  and 
with  belief  in  it.  Dr.  Hyde  indeed  has  used  it  with 
fine  effect  in  his  Love  Songs  of  Connacht,  but  alas ! 
gave  it  up  afterwards,  in  deference  to  some  Dublin 
editor.  He  wrote  to  me  after  his  first  visit:  "I 
had  a  very  prosperous  journey  up  from  Gort.  At 
Athenry  an  old  Irish-speaking  wanderer  made  my 
acquaintance.  He  claimed  to  be  the  best  singer 


Synge 


125 


in  England,  Ireland,  and  America.  One  night,  he 
says,  he  sang  a  song  at  Moate,  and  a  friend  of  his 
heard  the  words  in  Athenry.  He  was  so  much 
struck  by  the  event,  he  had  himself  examined  by 
one  who  knew,  and  found  that  his  singing  did  not 
come  out  of  his  lungs  but  out  of  his  heart,  which  is 
a  'winged  heart'!" 

At  the  time  of  hitf  first  visit  to  Coole  he  had 
written  some  poems,  not  very  good  for  the  most 
part,  and  a  play,  which  was  not  good  at  all.  I 
read  it  again  after  his  death  when,  according  to  his 
written  wish,  helping  Mr.  Yeats  in  sorting  out  the 
work  to  be  published  or  set  aside,  and  again  it 
seemed  but  of  slight  merit.  But  a  year  later  he 
brought  us  his  two  plays,  The  Shadow  of  the  Glen, 
and  the  Riders  to  the  Sea,  both  masterpieces,  both 
perfect  in  their  way.  He  had  got  emotion,  the 
driving  force  he  needed,  from  his  life  among  the 
people,  and  it  was  the  working  in  dialect  that 
had  set  free  his  style. 

He  was  anxious  to  publish  his  book  on  Aran  and 
these  two  plays,  and  so  have  something  to  add  to 
that  "£40  a  year  and  a  new  suit  when  I  am  too   ' 
shabby, "  he  used  with  a  laugh  to  put  down  as  his 
income.     He  wrote  to  me  from  Paris  in  February, 


126  Our  Irish  Theatre 

1902:  "I  don't  know  what  part  of  Europe  you 
may  be  in  now,  but  I  suppose  this  will  reach  you  if 
I  send  it  to  Coole.  I  want  to  tell  you  the  evil  fate 
of  my  Aran  book  and  ask  your  advice.  It  has 
been  to  two  London  publishers,  one  of  whom  was 
sympathetic,  though  he  refused  it,  as  he  said  it 
would  not  be  a  commercial  success,  and  the  other 
inclined  to  be  scornful. 

"  Now  that  you  have  seen  the  book,  do  you  think 
Jhat  there  would  be  any  chance  of  Mr.  N —  taking 
it  up?  I  am  afraid  he  is  my  only  chance,  but  I 
don't  know  whether  there  is  any  possibility  of 
getting  him  to  bring  out  a  book  of  the  kind  at  his 
own  expense,  as  after  all  there  is  very  little  folk- 
lore in  it. " 

I  took  the  book  to  London  and  had  it  retyped, 
for  Synge,  as  I  myself  do,  typed  his  own  manu- 
scripts, and  the  present  one  was  very  faint  and 
rubbed.  Both  Mr.  Yeats  and  I  took  it  to  pub- 
lishers, but  they  would  not  accept  it.  Synge 
writes  in  March,  1903: 

"My  play  came  back  xrom  the  Fortnightly  as 
not  suitable  for  their  purpose.  I  don't  think  that 
Mr.  J —  intends  to  bring  out  the  Aran  book.  I  saw 
him  on  my  way  home,  but  he  seemed  hopelessly 


Synge  127 

undecided,  saying  one  minute  he  liked  it  very 
much,  and  that  it  might  be  a  great  success,  and 
that  he  wanted  to  be  in  touch  with  the  Irish  move- 
ment, and  then  going  off  in  the  other  direction, 
and  fearing  that  it  might  fall  perfectly  flat! 
Finally  he  asked  me  to  let  him  consider  it  a  little 
longer!" 

I  was  no  more  successful.  I  wrote  to  Mr. 
Yeats,  who  was  in  America:  "I  went  to  Mr.  B. 
about  the  music  for  your  book.  .  .  I  think  I 
told  you  he  had  never  opened  the  Synge  MS.,  and 
said  he  would  rather  have  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
Masefield  has  it  now." 

Then  I  had  a  note:  "Dear  Lady  Gregory,  I 
saw  Mr.  N.  yesterday  and  spoke  to  him  about 
Synge's  new  play  [Riders  to  the  Sea],  which  struck 
me  as  being  in  some  ways  better  even  than  the 
other.  He  has  promised  to  read  it  if  it  is  sent  to 
him,  though  he  does  not  much  care  for  plays.  Will 
you  post  it  to,  the  Editor,  Monthly  Review.  .  .  . 
Yours  very  truly,  Arthur  Symons." 

Nothing  came  of  that  and  in  December  Synge 
writes: 

"I  am  delighted  to  find  that  there  is  a  prospect 
of  getting  the  book  out  at  last,  and  equally  grateful 


128  Our  Irish  Theatre 

fr 


for  the  trouble  you  have  taken  with  it.     I  am 
iting  to  Masefield  to-day  to  thank  him  and  ask 


him  by  all  means  to  get  Matthews  to  do  as  he 
proposes.  Do  you  think  if  he  brings  out  the  book 
in  the  spring,  I  should  add  the  Tinkers?  I  was 
getting  on  well  with  the  blind  people  (in  Well  of 
the  Saints),  till  about  a  month  ago  when  I  suddenly 
got  ill  with  influenza  and  a  nasty  attack  on  my 

lung.     I  am  getting  better  now,  but  I  cannot  work 

m 
yet  satisfactorily,  so  I  hardly  know  when  the  play 

is  likely  to  be  finished.  There  is  no  use  trying  to 
hurry  on  with  a  thing  of  that  sort  when  one  is  not 
in  the  mood. " 

Yet,  after  all,  the  Aran  book  was  not  published 
till  1907,  when  Synge's  name  had  already  gone  up. 
The  Shadow  of  the  Glen  and  Riders  to  the  Sea 
were  published  by  Mr.  Elkin  Matthews  in  1905. 
Riders  to  the  Sea  had  already  been  published  in 
Samhain,  the  little  annual  of  our  Theatre,  edited 
by  Mr.  Yeats.  And  in  America  a  friend  of  ours 
and  of  the  Theatre  had  printed  some  of  the  plays 
in  a  little  edition  of  fifty  copies,  thus  saving  his 
copyright.  It  was  of  Synge  and  of  others  as  well 
as  myself  I  thought  when,  in  dedicating  a  book  to 
John  Quinn  during  my  first  winter  in  America, 


Synge  129 

I  wrote,  "best  friend,  best  helper,  these  half  score 
years  on  this  side  of  the  sea. " 

When  Synge  had  joined  us  in  the  management 
of  the  Theatre,  he  took  his  share  of  the  work,  and 
though  we  were  all  amateurs  then,  we  got  on  some- 
how or  other.  He  writes  about  a  secretary  we 
had  sent  for  him  to  report  on:  "He  seems  very 
willing  and  I  think  he  may  do  very  well  if  he 
does  not  take  fright  at  us.  He  still  thinks  it  was 
a  terrible  thing  for  Yeats  to  suggest  that  Irish 
people  should  sell  their  souls  and  for  you  to  put 
His  Sacred  Majesty  James  II.  into  a  barrel.  He 
should  be  very  useful  in  working  up  an  audience ; 
an  important  part  of  our  work  that  we  have 
rather  neglected.  By  the  way,  the  annual  meet- 
ing of  our  company  must  be  held,  I  suppose, 
before  the  year  is  up.  It  would  be  well  to  have 
it  before  we  pay  off  Ryan,  as  otherwise  we  shall 
all  be  sitting  about,  looking  with  curiosity  and 
awe  at  the  balance  sheet. " 

He  went  on  bravely  with  his  work,  but  always 
fighting  against  ill  health.  He  writes:  "Feb.  15, 
'06.  Many  thanks  for  the  MS.  of  Le  M&decin. 
I  think  he  is  entirely  admirable  and  is  certain 
to  go  well.  This  is  just  a  line  to  acknowledge 


130  Our  Irish  Theatre 

the  MS.,  as  I  suppose  I  shall  see  you  in  a  day  or 
two. 

"My  play  has  made  practically  no  headway 
since,  as  I  have  been  down  for  ten  days  with  bron- 
chitis. My  lung  is  not  touched,  however,  and  I 
have  got  off  well  considering.  I  hope  I  shall  be  all 
right  by  next  week. " 

[About  the  same  date.] :  "I  am  pleased  with  the 
way  my  play  is  going,  but  I  find  it  is  quite  impos- 
sible to  rush  through  with  it  now,  so  I  rather  think 
I  shall  take  it  and  the  typewriter  to  some  place  in 
Kerry  where  I  could  work.  By  doing  so,  I  will  get 
some  sort  of  holiday  and  still  avoid  dropping  the 
play  again,  which  is  a  rather  dangerous  process. 
If  I  do  this,  I  will  be  beyond  posts.  ...  If  I  do 
not  get  a  good  summer,  I  generally  pay  for  it  in 
the  winter  in  extra  bouts  of  influenza  and  all  its 
miseries. " 

"August  12,  '06.  I  shall  be  very  glad,  thanks, 
to  go  down  and  read  you  my  play  (The  Playboy}, 
if  it  is  finished  in  time,  but  there  is  still  a  great 
deal  to  do.  I  have  had  a  very  steady  week's  work 
since  last  Sunday  and  have  made  good  way,  but 
my  head  is  getting  very  tired.  Working  in  hot 
weather  takes  a  lot  out  of  me. " 


Synge  131 

"November  25,  '06.  I  have  had  rather  a  worse 
attack  than  I  expected  when  I  wrote  my  last  note, 
but  I  am  much  better  now,  and  out  as  usual.  One 
of  my  lungs,  however,  has  been  a  little  touched, 
so  I  shall  have  to  be  careful  for  a  while.  Would  it 
be  possible  to  put  off  The  Playboy  for  a  couple  of 
weeks?  I  am  afraid  if  I  went  to  work  at  him  again 
now,  and  then  rehearsed  all  December,  I  would  be 
very  likely  to  knock  up  badly  before  I  was  done 
with  him.  My  doctor  says  I  may  do  so  if  it  is 
necessary,  but  he  advises  me  to  take  a  couple  of 
weeks'  rest  if  it  can  be  managed.  That  cousin  of 
mine  who  etches  is  over  here  now,  and  he  wants  me 
to  stay  with  him  for  a  fortnight  in  a  sort  of  country 
house  he  has  in  Surrey;  so  if  you  think  The  Playboy 
can  be  put  off,  I  will  go  across  on  Thursday  or 
Friday  and  get  back  in  time  to  see  The  Shadowy 
Waters  and  get  The  Playboy  under  way  for  January. 
What  do  you  think?  If  so,  I  would  like  to  read  the 
third  act  of  Playboy  to  you  before  I  go,  and  then 
make  final  changes  while  I  am  away,  as  I  shall  have 
a  quiet  time. " 

He  worked  very  hard  at  The  Playboy,  altering 
it  a  good  deal  as  he  went  on.  He  had  first  planned 
the  opening  act  in  the  ploughed  field,  where  the 


132  Our  Irish  Theatre 

'•  quarrel  between  Christy  and  his  father  took  place. 
But  when  he  thought  of  the  actual  stage,  he  could 
not  see  any  possible  side  wings  for  that  "wide, 
windy  corner  of  high  distant  hills. "  He  had  also 
thought  that  the  scene  of  the  return  of  the  father 
should  be  at  the  very  door  of  the  chapel  where 
Christy  was  to  wed  Pegeen.  But  in  the  end  all 
took  place  within  the  one  cottage  room.  We  all 
I  ^  '  tried  at  that  time  to  write  our  plays  so  as  to  re- 

i  K. 


N  JL  ft      -Jl  i 

^     •        quire  as  little  scene-shifting  as  possible  for  the 
fjS  sake  of  economy  of  scenery  and  of  stage  hands. 

In  October,  1906,  Synge  wrote  to  Mr.  Yeats: 
--v  "  My  play,  though  in  its  last  agony,  is  not  finished, 
-~j^  and  I  cannot  promise  it  for  any  definite  day.  It  is 
more  than  likely  that  when  I  read  it  to  you  and 
Fay,  there  will  be  little  things  to  alter  that  have 
escaped  me,  and  with  my  stuff  it  takes  time  to  get 
even  half  a  page  of  new  dialogue  fully  into  key  with 
what  goes  before  it.  The  play,  I  think,  will  be 
one  of  the  longest  we  have  done,  and  in  places 
extremely  difficult.  If  we  said  the  iQth,  I  could 
only  have  six  or  seven  full  rehearsals,  which  would 
not,  I  am  quite  sure,  be  enough.  I  am  very  sorry, 
but  what  is  to  be  done?" 

Then  he  wrote  to  me  in  November:  "May  I 


• 


Synge  133 

read  The  Playboy  to  you  and  Yeats  and  Fay,  some 
time  to-morrow,  Saturday,  or  Monday,  according 
as  it  suits  you  all?  A  little  verbal  correction  is 
still  necessary,  and  one  or  two  structural  points 
may  need — I  fancy  do  need — revision,  but  I  would 
like  to  have  your  opinions  on  it  before  I  go  any 
further." 

I  remember  his  bringing  the  play  to  us  in  Dublin, 
but  he  was  too  hoarse  to  read  it,  and  it  was  read 
by  Mr.  Fay.  We  were  almost  bewildered  by  its 
abundance  and  fantasy,  but  we  felt,  and  Mr. 
Yeats  said  very  plainly,  that  there  was  far  too 
much  "bad  language."  There  were  too  many 
violent  oaths,  and  the  play  itself  was  marred  by 
this.  I  did  not  think  it  was  fit  to  be  put  on 
the  stage  without  cutting.  It  was  agreed  that 
it  should  be  cut  in  rehearsal.  A  fortnight  before 
its  production,  Mr.  Yeats,  thinking  I  had  seen  a 
rehearsal,  wrote:  "I  would  like  to  know  how  you 
thought  TJie  Playboy  acted.  .  .  .  Have  they 
cleared  many  of  the  objectionable  sentences  out  of 
it?"  I  did  not,  however,  see  a  rehearsal  and  did  not 
hear  the  play  again  until  the  night  of  its  produc- 
tion, and  then  I  told  Synge  that  the  cuts  were 
not  enough,  that  many  more  should  be  made.  He 


134  Our  Irish  Theatre 

gave  me  leave  to  do  this,  and,  in  consultation  with 
the  players,  I  took  out  many  phrases  which, 
though  in  the  printed  book,  have  never  since  that 
first  production  been  spoken  on  our  stage.  I  am 
sorry  they  were  not  taken  out  before  it  had  been 
played  at  all,  but  that  is  just  what  happened. 

On  Saturday,  January  26,  1907,  I  found  a  note 
from  Synge  on  my  arrival  in  Dublin:  "I  do  not 
know  how  things  will  go  to-night.  The  day  com- 
pany are  all  very  steady  but  some  of  the  outsiders 
in  a  most  deplorable  state  of  uncertainty.  .  .  . 
I  have  a  sort  of  second  edition  of  influenza  and  I 
am  looking  gloomily  at  everything.  Fay  has 
worked  very  hard  all  through,  and  everything  has 
gone  smoothly. " 

I  think  the  week's  rioting  helped  to  break 
down  his  health.  He  was  always  nervous  at  a 
first  production  and  the  unusual  excitement 
attending  this  one  upset  him.  He  took  a  chill 
and  was  kept  to  his  bed  for  a  while.  Yet  he  got 
away  to  wild  places  while  he  could.  He  wrote  to 
me  from  the  Kerry  coast:  "My  journey  went  off 
all  right,  and  though  I  had  a  terribly  wet  night  in 
Tralee,  I  was  able  to  ride  on  here  next  day.  When 
I  came  up  to  the  house,  I  found  to  my  horror  a 


Synge  135 

large  green  tent  pitched  in  the  haggard  and  thought 
I  had  run  my  head  into  a  Gaelic  League  settlement 
at  last.  However,  it  turned  out  to  be  only  a  band 
of  sappers,  who  have  since  moved  on."  And 
again:  "The  day  after  to-morrow  I  move  on,  bag 
and  baggage,  to  the  Great  Blasket  Island.  It  is 
probably  even  more  primitive  than  Aran,  and  I  am 
wild  with  joy  at  the  prospect.  I  will  tell  you  of 
my  new  abode.  I  am  to  go  out  in  a  curragh  on 
Sunday,  when  the  people  are  going  back  from 
Mass  on  the  mainland,  and  I  am  to  lodge  with  the 
King!" 

It  was  only  in  the  country  places  he  was  shy  of 
the  Gaelic  League.  In  August,  1906,  he  says: 
"  I  went  to  the  Oireactas  on  Thursday  to  see  their 
plays.  Their  propagandist  play,  done  by  the 
Ballaghadereen  company,  was  clever,  with  some 
excellent  dialogue.  The  peasants  who  acted  it 
were  quite  admirable.  I  felt  really  enthusiastic 
about  the  whole  show,  although  the  definitely 
propagandist  fragments  were,  of  course,  very 
crude.  The  play  was  called,  I  think,  an  T-Atruighe 
mor  (The  big  change).  I  think  I  have  spelled  it 
wrong.  It  would  probably  read  badly." 

The  last  year  was  still  a  struggle  against  failing 


136  Our  Irish  Theatre 

strength:  "April,  '08.  I  have  been  waiting 
from  day  to  day  to  write,  so  that  I  might  say 
something  definite  about  my  'tin- tacks'  (an  allu- 
sion to  the  old  man  in  Workhouse  Ward  who  had 
pains  like  tin-tacks  in  his  inside)  and  possible 
plans.  I  was  with  the  doctor  again  to-day,  and 
he  thinks  I  may  have  to  go  into  hospital  again 
and  perhaps  have  an  operation,  but  things  are 
uncertain  for  a  day  or  two  ....  I  fear  there 
is  little  possibility  of  my  being  able  to  go  to  the 
shows  this  week,  so  I  do  not  know  if  you  ought  to 
come  up,  if  you  can  without  inconvenience.  I 
am  rather  afraid  of  slovenly  shows  if  there  are 
poor  houses  and  no  one  there  to  supervise.  It  is 
very  trying  having  to  drop  my  rehearsals  of  Well 
of  the  Saints.  In  fact,  this  unlocked  for  compli- 
cation is  a  terrible  upset  everyway — I  have  so 
much  to  do." 

"August  28,  '08.  I  have  just  been  with  Sir  C. 
Ball.  He  seems  to  think  I  am  going  on  very  well, 
and  says  I  may  ride  and  bicycle  and  do  what  I 
like!  All  the  same  I  am  not  good  for  much  yet. 
I  get  tired  out  very  easily.  I  am  half  inclined  to  go 
to  the  British  Association  matinee  on  Friday.  I 
would  like  to  hear  Yeats'  speech,  and  I  don't  think 


Synge  137 

it  would  do  me  any  harm.  In  any  case,  I  will  go 
in  and  see  you  when  you  are  up.  I  think  of  going 
away  to  Germany  or  somewhere  before  very  long. 
I  am  not  quite  well  enough  for  the  West  of  Ireland 
in  this  broken  weather,  and  I  think  the  complete 
change  would  do  me  most  good.  I  have  old 
friends  on  the  Rhine  I  could  stay  with,  if  I  decide 
to  go  there.  I  hear  great  accounts  of  the  Abbey 
this  week.  It  almost  looks  as  if  Dublin  was 
beginning  to  know  we  are  there.  I  have  been 
fiddling  with  my  Deirdre  a  little.  I  think  I  '11 
have  to  cut  it  down  to  two  longish  acts.  The 
middle  act  in  Scotland  is  impossible.  .  .  .  They 
have  been  playing  The  Well  of  the  Saints  in  Munich. 
I  have  just  got  £3:10,  royalties.  It  was  a  one-act 
version  I  have  just  heard  this  minute,  compressed 
from  my  text!" 

"January  3,  '09.  I  have  done  a  great  deal  to 
Deirdre  since  I  saw  you,  chiefly  in  the  way  of 
strengthening  motives  and  recasting  the  general 
scenario;  but  there  is  still  a  good  deal  to  be  done 
with  the  dialogue  and  some  scenes  in  the  first  act 
must  be  rewritten  to  make  them  fit  in  with  the 
new  parts  I  have  added.  I  only  work  a  little 
every  day,  and  I  suffer  more  than  I  like  with 


138  Our  Irish  Theatre 

indigestion  and  general  uneasiness  inside.  .  .  .  The 
doctors  are  vague  and  don't  say  much  that  is 
definite.  .  .  . 

"They  are  working  at  the  Miser  now  and  are 
all  very  pleased  with  it  and  with  themselves,  as  I 
hear.  I  have  not  been  in  to  see  a  rehearsal  yet, 
as  I  keep  out  in  the  country  as  much  as  I  can." 

But  his  strength  did  not  last  long  enough  to 
enable  him  to  finish  Deirdre  of  the  Sorrows,  his 
last  play.  After  he  was  gone,  we  did  our  best  to 
bring  the  versions  together,  and  we  produced  it 
early  in  the  next  year,  but  it  needed  the  writer's 
hand.  I  did  my  best  for  it,  working  at  its 
production  through  snowy  days  and  into  winter 
nights  until  rheumatism  seized  me  with  a  grip  I 
have  never  shaken  off.  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Yeats: 
"I  still  hope  we  can  start  with  Deirdre.  I  will 
be  in  Dublin  for  rehearsals  in  Christmas  week, 
though  I  still  hope  to  get  to  Paris  for  Christmas 
with  Robert,  but  it  may  not  be  worth  while.  I 
will  spend  all  January  at  the  Theatre,  but  I  must 
be  back  on  the  first  of  February  to  do  some  plant- 
ing that  cannot  be  put  off ."  And  again:  "lam 
more  hopeful  of  Deirdre  now.  I  have  got  Con- 
chubar  and  Fergus  off  at  the  last  in  Deirdre 's 


Synge  139 

long  speech  and  that  makes  an  immense  improve- 
ment. She  looks  lonely  and  pathetic  with  the 
other  two  women  crouching  and  rocking  themselves 
on  the  floor." 

For  we  have  done  our  best  for  Synge's  work 
since  we  lost  him,  as  we  did  while  he  was  with  us 
here. 

He  had  written  a  poem  which  was  in  the  Press 
at  the  time  of  his  death : 

"With  Fifteen -ninety  or  Sixteen-sixteen 
We  end  Cervantes,  Marot,  Nashe  or  Green; 
Then  Sixteen-thirteen  till  two  score  and  nine 
Is  Crashaw's  niche,  that  honey-lipped  divine. 
And  so  when  all  my  little  work  is  done 
They  '11  say  I  came  in  Eighteen-seventy-one, 
And  died  in  Dublin.     What  year  will  they  write 
For  my  poor  passage  to  the  stall  of  Night?" 

Early  in  1909  he  was  sent  again  into  a  private 
hospital  in  Dublin.  A  letter  came  to  me  from  Mr. 
Yeats,  dated  March  24th:  "In  the  early  morning 
Synge  said  to  the  nurse  'It's  no  use  righting  death 
any  longer,'  and  turned  over  and  died." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   FIGHT    WITH    THE    CASTLE 

IN  the  summer  of  1909  I  went  one  day  from 
London  to  Ayot  St.  Lawrence,  a  Hertfordshire 
village,  to  consult  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  on  some 
matters  connected  with  our  Theatre.  When  I 
was  leaving,  he  gave  me  a  little  book,  The  Shewing 
up  of  Blanco  Posnet,  which  had  just  been  printed, 
although  not  published.  It  had,  however,  been 
already  rejected  by  the  Censor,  as  all  readers  of 
the  newspapers  know;  and  from  that  quiet  cottage 
the  fiery  challenge-giving  answers  had  been  sent 
out.  I  read  the  play  as  I  went  back  in  the  train, 
and  when  at  St.  Pancras  Mr.  Yeats  met  me  to 
talk  over  the  business  that  had  taken  me  away,  I 
showed  him  the  little  book  that  had  been  given  its 
black  ball,  and  I  said,  "Hypocrites." 

A  little  time  afterwards  Mr.  Shaw  offered  us  the 
play  for  the  Abbey,  for  the  Censor  has  no  juris- 
diction in  Ireland — an  accidental  freedom.  We 

140 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        141 

accepted  it  and  put  it  in  rehearsal  that  we  might 
produce  it  in  Horse  Show  week.  We  were  without 
a  regular  stage  manager  at  that  time,  and  thought 
to  have  it  produced  by  one  of  the  members  of  the 
Company.  But  very  soon  the  player  who  had 
taken  it  in  charge  found  the  work  too  heavy  and 
troublesome,  and  withdrew  from  the  stage  man- 
agement, though  not  from  taking  a  part.  I 
had  a  letter  one  morning  telling  me  this,  and  I 
left  by  the  next  train  for  Dublin.  As  I  left,  I  sent 
a  wire  to  a  London  actor — a  friend — asking  if  he 
could  come  over  and  help  us  out  of  this  knot. 
Meanwhile,  that  evening,  and  before  his  answer 
came,  I  held  a  rehearsal,  the  first  I  had  ever  taken 
quite  alone.  I  thought  out  positions  during  the 
night,  and  next  morning,  when  I  had  another 
rehearsal,  I  began  to  find  an  extraordinary  interest 
and  excitement  in  the  work.  I  saw  that  Blanco's 
sermon,  coming  as  it  did  after  bustling  action,  was 
in  danger  of  seeming  monotonous.  I  broke  it  up 
by  making  him  deliver  the  first  part  standing  up 
on  the  Sheriff's  bench,  then  bringing  him  down 
to  sit  on  the  table  and  speak  some  of  the  words 
into  the  face  of  Elder  Posnet.  After  that  I 
sent  him  with  a  leap  on  to  the  table  for  the  last 


142  Our  Irish  Theatre 

phrases.  I  was  very  much  pleased  with  the  effect 
of  this  action,  and  by  the  time  a  telegram  told 
me  my  London  friend  could  come,  I  was  confident 
enough  to  do  without  him.  We  were  very  proud 
and  pleased  when  the  whole  production  was  taken 
to  London  later  by  the  Stage  Society.  I  have 
produced  plays  since  then,  my  own  and  a  few 
others.  It  is  tiring  work;  one  spends  so  much 
of  one's  own  vitality. 

That  is  what  took  me  away  from  home  to  Dub- 
lin in  that  summer  time,  when  cities  are  out  of 
season.  Mr.  Yeats  had  stayed  on  at  Coole  at  his 
work,  and  my  letters  to  him,  and  letters  after 
that  to  my  son  and  to  Mr.  Shaw,  will  tell  what 
happened  through  those  hot  days,  and  of  the  battle 
with  Dublin  Castle,  which  had  taken  upon  itself 
to  make  the  writ  of  the  London  Censor  run  at  the 
Abbey. 

I  received  while  hi  Dublin,  the  following  letter 
from  a  permanent  official  in  Dublin  Castle : 

"  DEAR  LADY  GREGORY: 

"  I  am  directed  by  the  Lord  Lieutenant  to  state 
that  His  Excellency's  attention  has  been  called  to 
an  announcement  in  the  Public  Press  that  a  play 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        143 

entitled  The  Shewing  up  of  Blanco  Posnet  is  about 
to  be  performed  in  the  Abbey  Theatre. 

"This  play  was  written  for  production  in  a 
London  theatre,  and  its  performance  was  dis- 
allowed by  the  Authority  which  in  England  is 
charged  with  the  Censorship  of  stage  plays.  The 
play  does  not  deal  with  an  Irish  subject,  and  it  is 
not  an  Irish  play  in  any  other  sense  than  that  its 
author  was  born  in  Ireland.  It  is  now  proposed  to 
produce  this  play  in  the  Abbey  Theatre,  which  was 
founded  for  the  express  purpose  of  encouraging 
dramatic  art  in  Ireland,  and  of  fostering  a  drama- 
tic school  growing  out  of  the  life  of  the  country. 

"The  play  in  question  does  not  seem  well 
adapted  to  promote  these  laudable  objects  or  to 
belong  to  the  class  of  plays  originally  intended 
to  be  performed  in  the  Abbey  Theatre,  as  de- 
scribed in  the  evidence  on  the  hearing  of  the 
application  for  the  Patent. 

"  However  this  may  be,  the  fact  of  the  proposed 
performance  having  been  brought  to  the  notice 
of  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  His  Excellency  cannot 
evade  the  responsibility  cast  upon  him  of  consider- 
ing whether  the  play  conforms  in  other  respects  to 
the  conditions  of  the  Patent. 


144  Our  Irish  Theatre 

"  His  Excellency,  after  the  most  careful  consider- 
ation, has  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  in  its 
original  form  the  play  is  not  in  accordance  either 
with  the  assurances  give'n  by  those  interested 
when  the  Patent  was  applied  for,  or  with  the 
conditions  and  restrictions  contained  in  the  Patent 
as  granted  by  the  Crown. 

"As  you  are  the  holder  of  the  Patent  in  trust 
for  the  generous  founder  of  the  Theatre,  His 
Excellency  feels  bound  to  call  your  attention,  and 
also  the  attention  of  those  with  whom  you  are 
associated,  to  the  terms  of  the  Patent  and  to  the 
serious  consequences  which  the  production  of  the 
play  in  its  original  form  might  entail.  .  ." 

I  tell  what  followed  in  letters  written  to  Coole: 

"Thursday,  August  I2th.  At  the  Theatre  this 
morning  the  Secretary  told  me  Whitney  &  Moore 
(our  solicitors)  had  telephoned  that  they  had  a 
hint  there  would  be  interference  with  the  pro- 
duction of  Blanco  Posnet  by  the  Castle,  and  would 
like  to  see  me. 

"I  went  to  see  Dr.  Moore.  He  said  a  Castle 
Official,  whose  name  he  would  not  give,  had  called 
the  day  before  yesterday  and  said,  'As  a  friend  of 
Sir  Benjamin  Whitney,  I  have  come  to  tell  you 


Ir 

The  Fight  with  the  Castle        145 

that  if  this  play  is  produced  it  will  be  a  very  ex- 
pensive thing  for  Miss  Horniman.'  Dr.  Moore 
took  this  to  mean  the  Patent  would  be  forfeited. 
I  talked  the  matter  Qver  with  him  and  asked  if  he 
would  get  further  information  from  his  friend  as 
to  what  method  they  meant  to  adopt,  for  I  would 
not  risk  the  immediate  forfeiture  of  the  Patent, 
but  would  not  mind  a  threat  of  refusal  to  give  a 
new  Patent,  as  by  that  time — 1910 — perhaps 
neither  the  present  Lord  Lieutenant  nor  the  present 
Censor  would  be  in  office. 

"  Dr.  Moore  said  he  would  go  and  see  his  friend, 
and  at  a  quarter  past  two  I  had  a  message  on  the 
telephone  from  him  that  I  had  better  see  the 
Castle  Official  or  that  he  wished  to  see  me  (I 
did  n't  hear  very  well)  before  3  o'clock.  I  went 
to  the  Castle  and  saw  the  Official.  He  said, '  Well. ' 
I  said,  'Are  you  going  to  cut  off  our  heads?'  He 
said,  'This  is  a  very  serious  business;  I  think  you 
are  very  ill-advised  to  think  of  putting  on  this 
play.  May  I  ask  how  it  came  about?'  I  said, 
'  Mr.  Shaw  offered  it  and  we  accepted  it. '  He  said, 
'You  have  put  us  in  a  most  difficult  and  disagree- 
able position  by  putting  on  a  play  to  which  the 
English  Censor  objected.'  I  answered,  'We  do 


146  Our  Irish  Theatre 

not  take  his  view  of  it,  and  we  think  it  hypocrisy 
objecting  to  a  fallen  woman  in  homespun  on  the 
stage,  when  a  fallen  woman  in  satin  has  been  the 
theme  of  such  a  great  number  of  plays  that  have 
been  passed.'  He  said,  'It  is  not  that  the  Cen- 
sor objected  to;  it  is  the  use  of  certain  expres- 
sions which  may  be  considered  blasphemous. 
Could  not  they  be  left  out?'  'Then  there  would 
be  no  play.  The  subject  of  the  play  is  a  man, 
a  horse-thief,  shaking  his  fist  at  Heaven,  and 
finding  afterwards  that  Heaven  is  too  strong  for 
him.  If  there  were  no  defiance,  there  could  be  no 
victory.  It  is  the  same  theme  that  Milton  has 
taken  in  Satan's  defiance  in  Paradise  Lost.  I 
consider  it  a  deeply  religious  play,  and  one  that 
could  hurt  no  man,  woman,  or  child.  If  it  had 
been  written  by  some  religious  leader,  or  even  by 
a  dramatist  considered  "safe,"  nonconformists 
would  admire  and  approve  of  it.'  He  said,  'We 
have  nothing  to  do  with  that,  the  fact  for  us  is 
that  the  Censor  has  banned  it.'  I  said,  'Yes,  and 
passed  The  Merry  Widow,  which  is  to  be  performed 
here  the  same  week,  and  which  I  have  heard  is 
objectionable,  and  The  Devil,  which  I  saw  in 
London.'  He  said,  'We  would  not  have  inter- 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        147 

fered,  but  what  can  we  do  when  we  see  such  para- 
graphs as  these?'  handing  me  a  cutting  from  the 
Irish  Times  headed,  'Have  we  a  Censor?'  I 
replied,  'We  have  not  written  or  authorised  it,  as 
you  might  see  by  its  being  incorrect.  I  am  sole 
Patentee  of  the  Theatre.'  He  said,  'Dublin 
society  will  call  out  against  us  if  we  let  it  go  on.' 
'Lord  Iveagh  has  taken  six  places.'  'For  that 
play?'  'Yes,  for  that  play,  and  I  believe  Dublin 
society  is  likely  to  follow  Lord  Iveagh. '  He  went 
on,  'And  Archbishop  Walsh  may  object.'  I  was 
silent.  He  said,  'It  is  very  hard  on  the  Lord 
Lieutenant.  You  should  have  had  more  consid- 
eration for  him.'  I  replied,  'We  did  not  know  or 
remember  that  the  power  rested  with  him,  but  it 
is  hard  on  him,  for  he  can't  please  everybody.' 
He  said,  'Will  you  not  give  it  up?'  'What  will 
you  do  if  we  go  on?  'Either  take  no  notice  or  take 
the  Patent  from  you  at  once.'  I  said,  'If  you 
decide  to  forfeit  our  Patent,  we  will  not  give  a 
public  performance ;  but  if  we  give  no  performance 
to  be  judged  by,  we  shall  rest  under  the  slur  of 
having  tried  to  produce  something  bad  and  injuri- 
ous.' 'We  must  not  provoke  Public  opinion.' 
'We  provoked  Nationalist  public  opinion  in  The 


148  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Playboy,  and  you  did  not  interfere.'  'Aye,'  said 
he,  '  exactly  so,  that  was  quite  different ;  that  had 
not  been  banned  by  the  Censor.'  I  said,  'Time 
has  justified  us,  for  we  have  since  produced  The 
Playboy  in  Dublin  and  on  tour  with  success,  and 
it  will  justify  us  in  the  case  of  this  play.'  'But 
Blanco  Posnet  is  very  inferior  to  The  Playboy.1 
I  said,  'Even  so,  Bernard  Shaw  has  an  intellec- 
tual position  above  that  of  Mr.  Synge,  though  he 
is  not  above  him  in  imaginative  power.  He  is 
recognised  as  an  intellectual  force,  and  his  work 
cannot  be  despised.'  'Lord  Aberdeen  will  have 
to  decide.'  'I  should  like  him  to  know,'  I  said, 
'  that  from  a  business  point  of  view  the  refusal  to 
allow  this  play,  already  announced,  to  be  given 
would  do  us  a  serious  injury. '  He  said,  '  No  ad- 
vertisements have  been  published.'  'Yes,'  I  said, 
'  the  posters  have  been  out  some  days,  and  there  is 
a  good  deal  of  booking  already  from  England  as 
well  as  here.  We  are  just  beginning  to  pay  our 
way  as  a  Theatre.  We  should  be  able  to  do  so  if  we 
got  about  a  dozen  more  stalls  regularly.  The  peo- 
ple who  would  take  stalls  will  be  frightened  off  by 
your  action.  The  continuance  of  our  Theatre  at 
all  may  depend  on  what  you  do  now.  We  are 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        149 

giving  a  great  deal  of  employment,  spending  in 
Dublin  over  £1500  a  year,  and  our  Company  bears 
the  highest  possible  character. '  He  said,  '  I  know 
that  well.'  I  said,  'I  know  Lord  Aberdeen  is 
friendly  to  our  Theatre,  though  he  does  not  come 
to  it,  not  liking  the  colour  of  our  carpets. '  He  said 
'He  is  a  supporter  of  the  drama.  He  was  one  of 
Sir  Henry  Irving's  pall-bearers. '  '  When  shall  we 
know  the  decision?'  'In  a  day  or  two,  perhaps 
to-morrow.  You  can  produce  it  in  Cork,  Gal- 
way,  or  Waterford.  It  is  only  in  Dublin  the 
Lord  Lieutenant  has  power.'  He  read  from  time 
to  time  a  few  lines  from  the  Patent  or  Act  of 
Parliament  before  him,  '  just  to  get  them  into  your 
head.'  The  last  words  he  read  were,  'There  must 
be  no  profane  representation  of  sacred  personages ' ; 
'and  that,'  he  said,  'applies  to  Blanco  Posnet's 
representations  of  the  Deity.'  I  told  him  of  the 
Censor's  note  on  The  Playboy,  'The  expression 
"Khaki  cut-throats"  must  be  cut  out,  together 
with  any  others  that  may  be  considered  deroga- 
tory to  His  Majesty's  Forces,'  and  he  laughed. 
Then  I  said,  'How  can  we  think  much  of  the 
opinion  of  a  man  like  that?'  He  said,  'I  believe 
he  was  a  bank  manager.'  We  then  said  good-bye." 


ISO  Our  Irish  Theatre 

"Friday,  5  o'c.  Dr.  Moore  sent  for  me  at 
4  o'clock.  I  went  with  W.  B.  Yeats,  who  had 
arrived.  The  Crown  Solicitor  at  the  Castle,  Sir 
B.  Whitney's  'friend,'  had  called  and  told  him 
the  Lord  Lieutenant  was  'entirely  opposed  to  the 
play  being  proceeded  with  and  would  use  every 
power  the  law  gave  him  to  stop  it,'  and  that,  '  it 
would  be  much  better  for  us  to  lay  the  play  aside.' 

I"  We  decided  to  go  on  with  the  performance  and 
let  the  Patent  be  forfeited,  and  if  we  must  die,  die 
gloriously.  Yeats  was  for  this  course,  and  I 
agreed.  Then  I  thought  it  right  to  let  the  Per- 
manent Official  know  my  change  of  intention,  and, 
after  some  unsuccessful  attempts  on  the  telephone, 
W.  B.  Y.  and  I  went  to  see  him  at  the  Castle.  He 
was  very  smiling  and  amiable  this  time,  and 
implored  us,  as  we  had  understood  him  to  do 
through  the  telephone,  to  save  the  Lord  Lieutenant 
from  his  delicate  position.  'You  defy  us,  you 
advertise  it  under  our  very  nose,  at  the  time  every- 
one is  making  a  fight  with  the  Censor.'  He 
threatened  to  take  away  our  Patent  before  the 
play  came  on  at  all,  if  we  persisted  in  the  intention. 
I  said  that  would  give  us  a  fine  case.  Yeats  said 
we  intended  to  do  CEdipus,  that  this  also  was  a 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        151 

censored  play,  although  so  unobjectionable  to 
religious  minds  that  it  had  been  performed  in 
the  Catholic  University  of  Notre  Dame,  and 
that  we  should  be  prevented  if  we  announced 
it  now.  He  replied,  'Leave  that  till  the  time 
comes,  and  you  needn't  draw  our  attention  to  it.' 
We  said  the  Irish  Times  might  again  draw  his 
attention  to  it.  He  proposed  our  having  a  private 
performance  only.  I  said,  '  I  had  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Shaw  objecting  to  that  course.'  He  moaned,  and 
said,  '  It  is  very  hard  upon  us.  Can  you  suggest  no 
way  out  of  it? '  We  answered,  '  None,  except  our 
being  left  alone.'  'Oh,  Lady  Gregory,'  he  said, 
'appeal  to  your  own  common  sense.'  When  I 
mentioned  Shaw's  letter,  he  said,  'All  Shaw 
wants  is  to  use  the  Lord  Lieutenant  as  a  whip 
to  lay  upon  the  Censor. '  Yeats  said,  '  Shaw  would 
use  him  in  that  way  whatever  happens.'  'I  know 
he  will, '  said  the  Official.  At  last  he  asked  if  we 
could  get  Mr.  Shaw  to  take  out  the  passages  he 
had  already  offered  to  take  out  for  the  Censor. 
We  agreed  to  ask  him  to  do  this,  as  we  felt  the 
Castle  was  beaten,  as  the  play  even  then  would 
still  be  the  one  forbidden  in  England. " 

This  is  the  letter  I  had  received  from  Mr.  Shaw : 


152  Our  Irish  Theatre 

"  10  Adelphi  Terrace,  W.  C.  I2th  August,  1909. 
Your  news  is  almost  too  good  to  be  true.  If  the 
Lord  Lieutenant  would  only  forbid  an  Irish  play 
without  reading  it,  and  after  it  had  been  declared 
entirely  guiltless  and  admirable  by  the  leading 
high  class  journal  on  the  side  of  his  own  party 
[The  Nation],  forbid  it  at  the  command  of  an 
official  of  the  King's  household  in  London,  then 
the  green  flag  would  indeed  wave  over  Abbey 
Street,  and  we  should  have  questions  in  Parliament 
and  all  manner  of  reverberating  advertisement  and 
nationalist  sympathy  for  the  Theatre. 

"I  gather  from  your  second  telegram  that  the 
play  has,  perhaps,  been  submitted  for  approval. 
If  so,  that  will  be  the  worse  for  us,  as  the  Castle 
can  then  say  they  forbade  it  on  its  demerits 
without  the  slightest  reference  to  the  Lord 
Chamberlain. 

"In  any  case,  do  not  threaten  them  with  a 
contraband  performance.  Threaten  that  we  shall 
be  suppressed;  that  we  shall  be  made  martyrs  of; 
that  we  shall  suffer  as  much  and  as  publicly  as 
possible.  Tell  them  that  they  can  depend  on  me 
to  burn  with  a  brighter  blaze  and  louder  yells  than 
all  Foxe's  martyrs. " 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        153 

Mr.  Shaw  telegraphed  his  answer  to  the  de- 
mand for  cuts: 


"  The  Nation  article  gives  particulars  of  cuts 
demanded,  which  I  refused  as  they  would  have  de- 
stroyed the  religious  significance  of  the  play.  The 
line  about  moral  relations  is  dispensable  as  they 
are  mentioned  in  several  other  places;  so  it  can 
be  cut  if  the  Castle  is  silly  enough  to  object  to 
such  relations  being  called  immoral,  but  I  will  cut 
nothing  else.  It  is  an  insult  to  the  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant to  ignore  him  and  refer  me  to  the  require- 
ments of  a  subordinate  English  Official.  I  will 
be  no  party  to  any  such  indelicacy.  Please  say  I 
said  so,  if  necessary." 


I  give  in  the  Appendix  the  Nation  article  to 
which  he  refers.  My  next  letter  home  says: 
"August  14.  Having  received  the  telegram  from 
Shaw  and  the  Nation  article,  we  went  to  the 
Castle  to  see  the  Official,  but  only  found  his 
secretary,  who  offered  to  speak  to  him  through  a 
telephone,  but  the  telephone  was  wheezy,  and 


154  Our  Irish  Theatre 

after  long  trying,  all  we  could  arrive  at  was  that 
he  wanted  to  know  if  we  had  seen  Sir  H.  Beerbohm 
Tree's  evidence,  in  which  he  said  there  were 
passages  in  Blanco  that  would  be  better  out. 
Then  he  proposed  our  going  to  see  him  at  his 
house,  as  he  has  gout  and  rheumatism  and  could  n't 
come  to  us. 

"We  drove  to  his  house.  He  began  on  Tree, 
but  Yeats  told  him  Tree  was  the  chief  representa- 
tive of  the  commercial  theatre  we  are  opposed  to. 
He  then  proposed  our  giving  a  private  performance, 
and  we  again  told  him  Shaw  had  forbidden  that. 
I  read  him  the  telegram  refusing  cuts,  but  he 
seemed  to  have  forgotten  that  he  had  asked  for 
cuts,  and  repeated  his  appeal  to  spare  the  Lord 
Lieutenant.  I  showed  him  the  Nation  article, 
and  he  read  it  and  said  '  But  the  Book  of  Job  is  not 
by  the  same  author  as  Blanco  PosneL'  Yeats 
said,  'Then  if  you  could,  you  would  censor  the 
Deity?'  'Just  so,'  said  he.  He  asked  if  we 
could  make  no  concession.  We  said,  'no,'  but 
that  if  they  decided  to  take  away  the  Patent,  we 
should  put  off  the  production  till  the  beginning  of 
our  season,  end  of  September,  and  produce  it  with 
CEdipus;  then  they  would  have  to  suppress  both 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        155 

together.  He  brightened  up  and  said,  if  we  could 
put  it  off,  things  would  be  much  easier,  as  the 
Commission  would  not  be  sitting  then  or  the 
Public  be  so  much  interested  in  the  question.  I 
said  'Of  course  we  should  have  to  announce  at 
once  that  it  was  in  consequence  of  the  threatened 
action  of  the  Castle  we  had  postponed  it.'  'Oh, 
you  really  don't  mean  that !  You  would  let  all  the 
bulls  loose.  It  would  be  much  better  not  to  say 
anything  at  all,  or  to  say  the  rehearsals  took  longer 
than  you  expected.'  'The  public  announcement 
will  be  more  to  our  own  advantage.'  '  Oh,  that  is 
dreadful ! '  I  said,  'We  did  not  give  in  one  quarter 
of  an  inch  to  Nationalist  Ireland  at  The  Playboy 
time,  and  we  certainly  cannot  give  in  one  quarter 
of  an  inch  to  the  Castle.' 

'"We  must  think  of  Archbishop  Walsh!'  I 
said, '  The  Archbishop  would  be  slow  to  move,  for  if 
he  orders  his  flock  to  keep  away  from  our  play,  he 
can't  let  them  attend  many  of  the  Censor's  plays, 
and  the  same  thing  applies  to  the  Lord  Lieuten- 
ant.' The  Official  said,  'I  know  that.'  We  said 
'We  did  not  give  in  to  the  Church  when  Car- 
dinal Logue  denounced  the  Countess  Cathleen. 
We  played  it  under  police  protection.'  '  I  never 


156  Our  Irish  Theatre 

heard  of  that.  Why  did  he  object?'  Yeats  said, 
'  For  exactly  the  same  objection  as  is  made  to  the 
present  one,  speeches  made  by  demons  in  the 
play.' 

"Yeats  spoke  very  seriously  then  about  the 
principle  involved;  pointing  out  that  we  were 
trying  to  create  a  model  on  which  a  great  national 
theatre  may  be  founded  in  the  future,  that  if  we 
accepted  the  English  Censor's  ruling  in  Ireland,  he 
might  forbid  a  play  like  Wills'  Robert  Emmet, 
which  Irving  was  about  to  act,  and  was  made 
to  give  up  for  political  reasons.  He  said,  'You 
want,  in  fact,  to  have  liberty  to  produce  all  plays 
refused  by  the  Censor.'  I  said,  'We  have  pro- 
duced none  in  the  past  and  not  only  that,  we 
have  refused  plays  that  we  thought  would  hurt 
Catholic  religious  feeling.  We  refused,  for  in- 
stance, to  produce  Synge's  Tinker's  Wedding, 
much  as  we  uphold  his  work,  because  a  drunken 
priest  made  ridiculous  appears  in  it.  That  very 
play  was  directly  after  Synge's  death  asked  for  by 
Tree,  whom  you  have  been  holding  up  to  us,  for 
production  in  London.'  He  said, '  I  am  very  sorry 
attention  was  drawn  to  the  play.  If  no  attention 
had  been  drawn  to  it  by  the  papers,  we  should 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        157 

be  all  right.  It  is  so  wrong  to  produce  it  while  the 
Commission  is  actually  sitting  and  the  whole 
question  sub  judice.  We  are  in  close  official  rela- 
tion with  the  English  officials  of  whom  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  is  one;  that  is  the  whole  question.' 
We  said,  '  We  see  no  way  out  of  it.  We  are  deter- 
mined to  produce  the  play.  We  cannot  accept  the 
Censor's  decision  as  applying  to  Ireland  and  you 
must  make  up  your  mind  what  course  to  take,  but 
we  ask  to  be  let  known  as  soon  as  possible  be- 
cause if  we  are  to  be  suppressed,  we  must  find 
places  for  our  players,  who  will  be  thrown  out  of 
work.'  He  threw  up  his  hands  and  exclaimed, 
'  Oh,  my  dear  lady,  but  do  not  speak  of  such  a  thing 
as  possible!'  'Why,'  I  asked,  'what  else  have  you 
been  threatening  all  the  time?'  He  said,  'Well, 
the  Lord  Lieutenant  will  be  here  on  Tuesday  and 
will  decide.  He  has  not  given  his  attention  to  the 
matter  up  to  this'  (this  does  not  bear  out  the 
Crown  Solicitor's  story) ;  '  Perhaps  you  had  better 
stay  to  see  him.'  I  told  him  that  I  wanted  to  get 
home,  but  would  stay  if  absolutely  necessary. 
He  said,  'Oh,  yes,  stay  and  you  will  probably  see 
Lady  Aberdeen  also.' ' 
Mr.  Shaw's  next  letter  was  from  Kerry  where  he 


158  Our  Irish  Theatre 

was  motoring.  In  it  he  said:  "I  saw  an  Irish 
Times  to-day  with  Blanco  announced  for  produc- 
tion; so  I  presume  the  Castle  has  not  put  its  foot 
down.  The  officials  made  an  appalling  technical 
blunder  in  acting  as  agents  of  the  Lord  Chamber- 
lain in  Ireland ;  and  I  worded  my  telegram  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  it  clear  that  I  knew  the  value  of 
that  indiscretion. 

"I  daresay  the  telegram  reached  the  Castle 
before  it  reached  you." 

Meanwhile  on  August  I5th  I  had  written  to  the 
Castle : 

"I  am  obliged  to  go  home  to-morrow,  so  if  you 
have  any  news  for  us,  will  you  very  kindly  let  us 
have  it  at  Coole. 

"We  are,  as  you  know,  arranging  to  produce 
Blanco  on  Wednesday,  25th,  as  advertised  and 
booked  for,  unless  you  serve  us  with  a  '  Threaten- 
ing notice,'  in  which  case  we  shall  probably  post- 
pone it  till  September  3Oth  and  produce  it  with  the 
already  promised  (Edipus. 

"I  am  very  sorry  to  have  given  you  so  much 
trouble  and  worry,  and,  as  we  told  you,  we  had  no 
idea  the  responsibility  would  fall  on  any  shoulders 
but  our  own ;  but  I  think  we  have  fully  explained 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        159 

to  you  the  reasons  that  make  it  necessary  for  us 
now  to  carry  the  matter  through. " 

I  received  the  following  answer: 

"  I  am  sorry  you  have  been  obliged  to  return  to 
Galway.  His  Excellency,  who  arrived  this  morn- 
ing, regrets  that  he  has  missed  the  opportunity  of 
seeing  you  and  desires  me  to  say  that  if  you  wished 
an  interview  with  him  on  Thursday,  he  would  be 
glad  to  receive  you  at  the  Viceregal  Lodge. 

"He  will  give  the  subject  which  has  been  dis- 
cussed between  us  his  earliest  attention." 

I  received  by  the  same  post  a  long  and  very 
kind  letter  from  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  written 
with  his  own  hand.  I  am  sorry  that  it  was  marked 
"Private,"  and  so  I  cannot  give  it  here.  I  may, 
however,  quote  the  words  that  brought  us  back 
to  Dublin.  "It  would  seem  that  some  further 
personal  conference  might  be  very  desirable  and 
therefore  I  hope  that  it  may  be  possible  for  you 
to  revisit  Dublin  on  the  earliest  available  day.  I 
shall,  of  course,  be  most  happy  to  have  an  oppor- 
tunity for  a  talk  with  Mr.  Yeats. " 

So  my  next  letter  home  says:  "Friday,  2Oth. 
We  arrived  at  the  Broadstone  yesterday  at  2.15, 
and  were  met  by  the  Official's  secretary,  who  asked 


160  Our  Irish  Theatre 

us  to  go  to  the  Viceregal  Lodge.  Arrived  there, 
another  secretary  came  and  asked  me  to  go  and 
see  the  Lord  Lieutenant  alone,  saying  Mr.  Yeats 
could  go  in  later. " 

Alas !  I  must  be  discreet  and  that  conversation 
with  the  King's  representative  must  not  be  given 
to  the  world,  at  least  by  me.  I  can  only  mention 
external  things:  Mr.  Yeats,  until  he  joined  the 
conference,  being  kept  by  the  secretary,  whether 
from  poetical  or  political  reasons,  to  the  non- 
committal subject  of  Spring  flowers;  my  grieved 
but  necessary  contumacy;  our  joint  and  immovable 
contumacy;  the  courtesy  shown  to  us  and,  I  think, 
also  by  us;  the  kindly  offers  of  a  cup  of  tea;  the 
consuming  desire  for  that  tea  after  the  dust  of  the 
railway  journey  all  across  Ireland;  our  heroic 
refusal,  lest  its  acceptance  should  in  any  way, 
even  if  it  did  not  weaken  our  resolve,  compromise 
our  principles.  .  .  .  His  Excellency's  gracious 
nature  has  kept  no  malice  and  he  has  since  then 
publicly  taken  occasion  to  show  friendship  for  our 
Theatre.  I  felt  it  was  a  business  forced  upon  him, 
who  had  used  his  high  office  above  all  for  reconcile- 
ment, as  it  was  upon  me,  who  had  lived  under  a 
peaceful  star  for  some  half  a  hundred  years.  I 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle         161 

think  it  was  a  relief  to  both  of  us  when  at  last  he 
asked  us  to  go  on  to  the  Castle  and  see  again  "a 
very  experienced  Official." 

I  may  now  quote  again  from  my  letters:  "We 
found  the  Official  rather  in  a  temper.  He  had  been 
trying  to  hear  Lord  Aberdeen's  account  of  the  in- 
terview through  the  telephone  and  could  not.  We 
gave  our  account,  he  rather  threatening  in  tone, 
repeating  a  good  deal  of  what  he  had  said  before. 
He  said  we  should  be  as  much  attacked  as  they, 
whatever  happened,  and  that  men  connected 
with  two  newspapers  had  told  him  they  were  only 
waiting  for  an  opportunity  of  attacking  not  only 
the  Lord  Lieutenant  but  the  Abbey,  if  the  play 
is  allowed;  so  we  should  also  catch  it.  I  said, 
'Apres  vous.'  He  said  Mr.  Yeats  had  stated  in 
the  Patent  Enquiry,  the  Abbey  was  for  the  pro- 
duction of  romantic  work.  I  quoted  Parnell, 
'Who  shall  set  bounds  to  the  march  of  a  Nation?' 
We  told  him  our  Secretary  had  reported,  'Very 
heavy  booking,  first  class  people,  a  great  many 
from  the  Castle.' 

"He  said  he  would  see  the  Lord  Lieutenant  on 
his  way  home.  We  went  to  Dame  Street  Post 
Office  and  wired  to  Mr.  Shaw :  '  Have  seen  Viceroy. 


162  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Deleted  immoral  relations,  refused  other  cuts. 
He  is  writing  to  King,  who  supports  Censor. " 

Then,  as  holder  of  the  Patent,  I  took  coun- 
sel's opinion  on  certain  legal  points,  of  which  the 
most  vital  was  this : 

"Should  counsel  be  of  opinion  that  the  Crown 
will  serve  notice  requiring  the  play  to  be  dis- 
continued, then  counsel  will  please  say  what 
penalty  he  thinks  querist  would  expose  herself  to 
by  disregarding  the  notice  of  the  Crown  and 
continuing  the  representation?  " 

The  answer  to  this  question  was : 

"If  the  theatre  ceases  to  be  licensed,  as  pointed 
out  above,  and  any  performance  for  gain  takes 
place  there,  the  penalty  under  the  26.  Geo.  III. 
cap  57,  sec.  (2)  is  £300  for  each  offence,  to  be  re- 
covered in  a  'qui  tarn'  action;  one  half  of  the 
£300  going  to  the  Rotunda  Hospital,  the  other 
half  to  the  informer  who  sues. " 

Mr.  Yeats  and  I  were  just  going  to  a  rehearsal 
at  the  Abbey  on  the  evening  of  August  2ist 
when  we  received  a  letter  from  the  Castle,  telling 
us  that  a  formal  legal  document,  forbidding  the 
performance  of  the  play,  would  reach  us  im- 
mediately. The  matter  had  now  become  a  very 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle         163 

grave  one.  We  knew  that  we  should,  if  we  went 
on  and  this  threat  were  carried  out,  lose  not  only 
the  Patent  but  that  the  few  hundred  pounds  that 
we  had  been  able  to  save  and  with  which  we  could 
have  supported  our  players  till  they  found  other 
work,  would  be  forfeited.  This  thought  of  the 
players  made  us  waver,  and  very  sadly  we  agreed 
that  we  must  give  up  the  fight.  We  did  not  say  a 
word  of  this  at  the  Abbey  but  went  on  rehearsing 
as  usual.  When  we  had  left  the  Theatre  and 
were  walking  through  the  lamp-lighted  streets,  we 
found  that  during  those  two  or  three  hours  our 
minds  had  come  to  the  same  decision,  that  we  had 
given  our  word,  that  at  all  risks  we  must  keep  it  or 
it  would  never  be  trusted  again;  that  we  must  in 
no  case  go  back,  but  must  go  on  at  any  cost. 

We  wrote  a  statement  in  which  we  told  of  the 
pressure  put  upon  us  and  the  objections  made, 
but  of  these  last  we  said:  "there  is  nothing  to 
change  our  conviction  that  so  far  from  containing 
offence  for  any  sincere  and  honest  mind,  Mr. 
Shaw's  play  is  a  high  and  weighty  argument  upon 
the  working  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  man's  heart, 
or  to  show  that  it  is  not  a  befitting  thing  for  us  to 
set  upon  our  stage  the  work  of  an  Irishman,  who 


164  Our  Irish  Theatre 

is  also  the  most  famous  of  living  dramatists,  after 
that  work  has  been  silenced  in  London  by  what  we 
believe  an  unjust  decision. 

"One  thing"  we  continued,  "is  plain  enough,  an 
issue  that  swallows  up  all  else  and  makes  the 
merit  of  Mr.  Shaw's  play  a  secondary  thing.  If 
our  Patent  is  in  danger,  it  is  because  the  decisions 
of  the  English  Censor  are  being  brought  into 
Ireland,  and  because  the  Lord  Lieutenant  is  about 
to  revive,  on  what  we  consider  a  frivolous  pretext, 
a  right  not  exercised  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
to  forbid,  at  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  pleasure,  any 
play  produced  in  any  Dublin  theatre,  all  these 
theatres  holding  their  Patents  from  him. 

"We  are  not  concerned  with  the  question  of  the 
English  Censorship  now  being  fought  out  in  Lon- 
don, but  we  are  very  certain  that  the  conditions 
of  the  two  countries  are  different,  and  that  we  must 
not,  by  accepting  the  English  Censor's  ruling,  give 
away  anything  of  the  liberty  of  the  Irish  Theatre 
of  the  future.  Neither  can  we  accept  without 
protest  the  revival  of  the  Lord  Lieutenant's  claim 
at  the  bidding  of  the  Censor  or  otherwise.  The 
Lord  Lieutenant  is  definitely  a  political  personage, 
holding  office  from  the  party  in  power,  and  what 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle        165 

would  sooner  or  later  grow  into  a  political  Censor- 
ship cannot  be  lightly  accepted." 

Having  sent  this  out  for  publication,  we  went  on 
with  our  rehearsals. 

In  rehearsal  I  came  to  think  that  there  was  a 
passage  that  would  really  seem  irreverent  and 
give  offence  to  the  genuinely  religious  minds  we 
respect.  It  was  where  Blanco  said:  "Yah!  What 
about  the  croup?  I  guess  He  made  the  croup 
when  He  was  thinking  of  one  thing;  and  then  He 
made  the  child  when  He  was  thinking  of  something 
else;  and  the  croup  got  past  Him  and  killed  the 
child.  Some  of  us  will  have  to  find  out  how  to 
kill  the  croup,  I  guess.  I  think  I  '11  turn  doctor 
just  on  the  chance  of  getting  back  on  Him  by 
doing  something  He  could  n't  do. " 

I  wrote  to  Mr.  Shaw  about  this,  and  he  an- 
swered in  this  very  interesting  letter : 

"  Parknasilla,  19  August,  1909. 

"1  have  just  arrived  and  found  all  your  letters 
waiting  for  me.  I  am  naturally  much  entertained 
by  your  encounters  and  Yeats'  with  the  Castle. 
I  leave  that  building  cheerfully  in  your  hands. 

"But  observe  the  final  irony  of  the  situation. 
The  English  Censorship  being  too  stupid  to  see  the 


i66  Our  Irish  Theatre 

real  blasphemy,  makes  a  fool  of  itself.  But  you, 
being  clever  enough  to  put  your  finger  on  it  at 
once,  immediately  proceed  to  delete  what  Red- 
ford's  blunders  spared. 

"To  me,  of  course,  the  whole  purpose  of  the 
play  lies  in  the  problem,  'What  about  the  croup?" 

When  Lady ,  in  her  most  superior  manner,  told 

me,  'He  is  the  God  of  Love, '  I  said,  'He  is  also 
the  God  of  Cancer  and  Epilepsy. '  That  does  not 
present  any  difficulty  to  me.  All  this  problem  of 
the  origin  of  evil,  the  mystery  of  pain,  and  so 
forth,  does  not  puzzle  me.  My  doctrine  is  that 
God  proceeds  by  the  method  of  '  Trial  and  error, ' 
just  like  a  workman  perfecting  an  aeroplane;  he 
has  to  make  hands  for  himself  and  brains  for 
himself  in  order  that  his  will  may  be  done.  He 
has  tried  lots  of  machines — the  diphtheria  bacillus 
the  tiger,  the  cockroach;  and  he  cannot  extirpate 
them,  except  by  making  something  that  can  shoot 
them,  or  walk  on  them,  or,  cleverer  still,  devise 
vaccines  and  anti-toxins  to  prey  on  them.  To 
me  the  sole  hope  of  human  salvation  lies  in  teaching 
Man  to  regard  himself  as  an  experiment  in  the 
realisation  of  God,  to  regard  his  hands  as  God's 
hands,  his  brain  as  God's  brain,  his  purpose  as 


The  Fight  with  the  Castle         167 

God's  purpose.  He  must  regard  God  as  a  helpless 
longing,  which  longed  him  into  existence  by  its 
desperate  need  for  an  executive  organ.  You  will 
find  it  all  in  Man  and  Super  Man,  as  you  will  find 
it  all  behind  Blanco  Posnet.  Take  it  out  of  my 
play,  and  the  play  becomes  nothing  but  the  old 
cry  of  despair — Shakespeare's,  'As  flies  to  wanton 
boys,  so  we  are  to  the  Gods;  they  kill  us  for 
their  sport* — the  most  frightful  blasphemy  ever 
uttered."  Mr.  Shaw  enclosed  with  this  the  pas- 
sage rewritten,  as  it  now  appears  in  the  published 
play. 

We  put  on  Blanco  on  the  date  announced,  the 
25th  of  August.  We  were  anxious  to  the  last,  for 
counsel  were  of  the  opinion  that  if  we  were  stopped, 
it  would  be  on  the  Clause  in  the  Patent  against 
"Any  representation  which  should  be  deemed  or 
construed  immoral,"  and  that  if  Archbishop 
Walsh  or  Archbishop  Peacocke  or  especially  the 
Head  of  the  Lord  Lieutenant's  own  Church,  the 
Moderator  of  the  Presbyterian  Assembly,  should 
say  anything  which  might  be  "deemed  and  con- 
strued" to  condemn  the  play,  the  threats  made 
would  be  carried  out.  There  were  fears  of  a  riot 
also,  for  newspapers  and  their  posters  had  kept  up 


1 68  Our  Irish  Theatre 

the  excitement,  and  there  was  an  immense  audience. 
It  is  a  pity  we  had  not  thought  in  time  of  putting 
up  our  prices.  Guineas  were  offered  even  for 
standing  room  hi  the  wings. 

The  play  began,  and  till  near  the  end  it  was 
received  in  perfect  silence.  Perhaps  the  audience 
were  waiting  for  the  wicked  bits  to  begin.  Then, 
at  the  end,  there  was  a  tremendous  burst  of 
cheering,  and  we  knew  we  had  won.  Some  stranger 
outside  asked  what  was  going  on  in  the  Theatre. 
"They  are  defying  the  Lord  Lieutenant"  was  the 
answer;  and  when  the  crowd  heard  the  cheering, 
they  took  it  up  and  it  went  far  out  through  the 
streets. 

There  were  no  protests  made  on  any  side.  And 
the  play,  though  still  forbidden  in  England,  is 
still  played  by  us,  and  always  with  success.  And 
even  if  the  protests  hoped  for  had  been  made  and 
we  had  suffered,  does  not  Nietzsche  say  "A  good 
battle  justifies  every  cause"? 


CHAPTER  VII 
"THE  PLAYBOY"  IN  AMERICA 

ON  September  7,  1911,  I  received  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Yeats:  "I  am  trying  possible  substitutes  for 
Miss  O'Neill  and  some  will  not  do.  As  a  last  re- 
source I  have  told  Miss  Magee  to  understudy  the 
part  of  '  Pegeen  Mike. '  She  was  entirely  natural 
and  delightful  in  that  small  part  in  The  Mineral 
Workers  the  day  before  yesterday.  I  said  to 
some  one  that  she  had  the  sweet  of  the  apple,  and 
would  be  a  Pegeen  Mike  if  she  could  get  the  sour 
of  the  apple  too.  Now  the  serious  difficulty  of 
the  moment  is  that  there  is  nobody  in  the  theatre 
capable  of  teaching  a  folk  part  to  an  inexperienced 
person.  If  there  was,  I  would  at  once  put  Miss 
Magee  into  Pegeen  Mike;  by  the  time  she  had 
played  it  through  the  States  she  could  come  back 
Miss  O'Neill's  successor  Now  I  am  going  to  ask 
you  if  you  feel  well  enough  for  a  desperate  measure. 
Can  you,  if  it  seem  necessary  to-morrow,  take  my 

169 


170  Our  Irish  Theatre 

place  in  the  steamboat  on  Tuesday  evening? 
Allowing  eight  days  for  the  passage — for  the  boat 
is  slow — you  would  arrive  in  Boston  on  the  20th. 
The  Playboy  cannot  come  till  about  the  28th ;  you 
would  be  able  to  train  Miss  Magee  for  the  part, 
or,  of  course,  another  if  you  prefer  her.  ...  I 
can  wire  to-morrow  and  get  the  necessary  papers 
made  out  (you  have  to  swear  you  are  not  an  Anar- 
chist). If  they  want  me  I  can  follow  next  boat 
and  possibly  arrive  before  you.  I  will  go  steerage 
if  necessary ;  that  will  be  quite  an  amusing  adven- 
ture, and  I  shall  escape  all  interviewers.  One 
thing  I  am  entirely  sure  of,  that  there  is  no  one 
but  you  with  enough  knowledge  of  folk  to  work  a 
miracle." 

I  could  not  set  out  on  the  same  day  as  the 
Company.  I  was  needed  at  home.  But  I  pro- 
mised to  follow  in  the  Cymric,  sailing  from  Queens- 
town  a  week  later. 

I  think  from  the  very  first  day  Mr.  Yeats  and 
I  had  talked  at  Duras  of  an  Irish  Theatre,  and 
certainly  ever  since  there  had  been  a  company  of 
Irish  players,  we  had  hoped  and  perhaps  deter- 
mined to  go  to  A n  t-Oilean  ur  "the  New  Island," 
the  greater  Ireland  beyond  the  Atlantic.  But 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       171 

though,  as  some  Connacht  girls  said  to  me  at 
Buffalo,  "Since  ever  we  were  the  height  of  the 
table,  America  it  was  always  our  dream,"  and 
though  we  had  planned  that  if  for  any  cause  our 
Theatre  should  seem  to  be  nearing  its  end  we 
would  take  our  reserve  fund  and  spend  it  mainly 
on  that  voyage  and  that  venture,  we  did  not  our- 
selves make  the  opportunity  at  the  last.  After 
we  had  played  in  the  summer  of  191 1  at  the  Court 
Theatre,  as  ever  for  a  longer  period  and  to  a  larger 
audience,  we  were  made  an  offer  by  the  theatrical 
managers,  Liebler  &  Co.,  to  play  for  three  or 
four  months  in  the  United  States,  and  the  offer 
had  been  accepted.  They  had  mentioned  certain 
plays  as  essential,  among  them  The  Playboy  of  the 
Western  World.  Miss  O'Neill,  who  had  played 
its  heroine,  had  married  and  left  us;  that  is  how 
the  difficulty  had  arisen. 

On  September  iQth  I  said  good-bye  to  home, 
where  I  had  meant  to  spend  a  quiet  winter,  writing 
and  planting  trees,  and  to  the  little  granddaughter 
for  whose  first  appearance  in  the  world  I  had 
waited.  There  had  not  been  many  days  for  pre- 
paration, but  it  was  just  as  well  I  did  not  require 
large  trunks,  for  on  the  eve  of  my  journey  a  rail- 


172  Our  Irish  Theatre 

way  strike  was  declared  in  Ireland  and  there  were 
no  trains  to  take  any  one  to  Queenstown.  Motors 
are  still  few  in  the  country.  We  wired  to  Limerick 
but  all  were  engaged  already;  to  Galway  which 
did  not  answer  at  all ;  and  to  Loughrea,  where  the 
only  one  had  already  been  engaged  by  my  neigh- 
bour, Lord  Gough,  who  had  friends  with  him  who 
also  wanted  means  to  travel.  I  could  but  send 
over  a  message  to  his  home,  Lough  Cutra  Castle, 
in  the  dark  of  night;  and  a  kindly  answer  came 
that  he  would  yield  his  claim  to  mine.  So  at 
midday  on  September  iQth,  I  set  out  with  such 
luggage  as  I  could  take,  to  cross  the  five  counties 
that  lay  between  me  and  Queenstown  harbour. 
One  of  the  tires  broke  at  intervals,  once  on  the 
top  of  a  wild  mountain  in,  I  think,  the  County 
Limerick,  and  people  came  out  from  a  lonely 
cottage  to  say  how  far  we  were  from  any  town  or 
help ;  and  these  delays  kept  us  from  reaching  Cork 
till  after  dark.  Then  we  went  on  towards  Queens- 
town  in  a  fine  rain  which  had  begun,  and  after  a 
while  when  we  stopped  to  ask  the  way  we  were 
told  we  had  gone  eight  miles  beyond  it.  But  I 
was  in  time  after  all,  went  out  in  the  tender  and 
joined  the  Cymric  next  morning,  and  so  made  my 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       173 

first  voyage  across  the  ocean.  The  weather  was 
rather  cold  and  rough  and  I  was  glad  of  a  rest, 
and  stayed  a  good  deal  in  my  cabin.  I  knew  no 
one  on  board  and  I  had  leisure  to  write  a  little 
play,  Mac  Donougtis  Wife,  which  had  been  forming  ! 
itself  in  my  mind  for  a  while  past. 

I  had  always  had  a  passion  for  the  sea,  as  I 
saw  it  from  our  coasts  and  in  our  bays  and 
invers,  and  when  going  through  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  the  Indian  Ocean.  But  the  great 
Atlantic  seemed  dark  and  dead  and  monoton- 
ous, and  it  was  a  relief  when  on  the  last  day 
or  two  one  could  see  whales  spouting,  and  a 
sparrow  came  and  perched  on  the  ship;  and 
then  fishing  boats,  looking  strange  in  shape 
and  rigging,  came  in  sight,  and  I  felt  like  Chris- 
topher Columbus. 

Mr.  Yeats,  who  had  gone  on  with  the  Company, 
came  to  meet  me  on  board  ship  as  we  arrived  at 
Boston  on  September  29th,  St.  Michael's  Day, 
and  told  me  of  the  success  of  the  first  perform- 
ances there;  and  that  evening  I  went  to  the 
Plymouth  Theatre  and  found  a  large  audience, 
and  a  very  enthusiastic  one,  listening  to  the  plays. 
I  could  not  but  feel  moved  when  I  saw  this,  and 


174  Our  Irish  Theatre 

remembered  our  small  beginnings  and  the  years 
of  effort  and  of  discouragement. 

The  interviewers  saved  me  the  trouble  of  writ- 
ing letters  these  first  days.  I  sent  papers  home 
'instead.  It  was  my  first  experience  of  this  way 
[of  giving  news,  and  I  was  amused  by  it.  One 
always,  I  suppose,  likes  talking  about  oneself  and 
what  one  is  interested  in,  and  that  is  what  they 
asked  me  to  do.  I  found  them  everywhere 
courteous,  mannerly,  perhaps  a  little  over-insist- 
ent. I  think  I  only  offended  one,  a  lady  in  a 
provincial  town.  She  wanted  to  talk  about  The 
Playboy,  and  for  reasons  of  policy  I  did  n't.  She 
avenged  herself  by  saying  I  had  no  sense  of  humour 
and  that  my  dress  (Paris!)  "had  no  relation  to  the 
prevailing  modes." 

I  had  plenty  to  do  at  first.  I  had  not  much 
time  to  go  about,  for  I  rehearsed  all  the  mornings 
and  could  not  leave  the  theatre  in  the  evenings, 
but  when  I  got  free  of  constant  rehearsal  I  was 
taken  by  friends  to  see,  as  I  longed  to  see,  some- 
thing of  the  country.  I  wanted  especially  to  know 
what  the  coast  here  was  like — whether  it  was  very 
different  from  our  own  of  Gal  way  and  of  Clare;  and 
I  had  a  wonderful  Sunday  at  a  fine  country 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       175 

house  on  the  North  Shore,  and  saw  the  islands  and 
the  reddish  rocks,  not  like  our  grey  ones  opposite; 
and  the  lovely  tints  of  the  autumn  leaves,  a  red 
and  yellow  undergrowth  among  the  dark  green 
trees.  My  hostess's  grandchildren  were  playing 
about.  One  said,  "  I  am  going  to  be  a  bear,"  and 
grunted.  It  made  me  so  glad  to  think  the  little 
grandson  at  home  has  a  playfellow  in  the  making 
— in  the  cradle! 

Boston  is  a  very  friendly  place.  There  are  so 
many  Irish  there  that  I  had  been  told  at  home 
there  is  a  part  of  it  called  Galway,  and  I  met  many 
old  friends.  Some  I  had  known  as  children,  sons 
of  tenants  and  daughters,  now  comfortably  settled 
in  their  own  houses.  I  had  known  of  the  nearness 
of  America  before  I  came,  for  I  remember  asking 
an  old  woman  at  Kiltartan  why  her  daughter  who 
had  been  home  on  a  visit  had  left  her  again,  and 
she  had  said,  "Ah,  her  teeth  were  troubling  her 
and  her  dentist  lives  at  Boston."  England,  on 
the  other  hand,  seems  a  long  way  off,  and  there 
are  many  tears  shed  if  a  child  goes  even  to  a  good 
post  over  the  Channel.  Two  dear  old  ladies  came 
to  see  me,  daughters  of  an  old  steward  of  my 
father's.  One  of  them  said  she  used  to  "braid  my 


176  Our  Irish  Theatre 

hair"  as  a  chi'd  that  I  might  be  in  time  for  family 
prayers,  and  had  wept  when  she  saw  the  snapshots 
in  the  papers  after  I  landed,  and  found  I  was  so 
changed.  She  said,  weeping,  "I  hope  the  people 
i  of  America  know  you  are  a  real  lady ;  if  not,  I  could 
j  testify  to  it !"  And  I  was  able  to  write  to  my  son 
of  the  well-being  of  tenants'  children:  "T.  C. 
and  his  wife  came  to  the  theatre  and  brought  me 
a  beautiful  bouquet  of  pink  carnations.  I  had  a 
visit  from  M.  R.,  such  a  handsome,  smart  girl,  and 
from  N.  H.,  sending  up  her  visiting  card,  very 
pleased  with  herself.  Many  of  the  ladies  I  meet 
tell  me  vhe  cook  or  laundress  or  manservant  are 
so  excited  at  their  meeting  me  and  know  all  about 
me."  And  the  son  of  a  Welsh  carpenter  who  had 
lived  at  Roxborough  in  my  childhood  met  me  at 
the  theatre  door  after  Spreading  the  News  and 
said,  "I  never  thought,  when  you  used  to  teach 
us  in  Sunday  School,  you  would  ever  write  such 
merry  comedies."  This  reminded  me  of  the  tailor 
from  Gort  who  wrote  home  after  a  visit  to  the 

(Abbey,  "No  one  who  knows  Lady  Gregory  would 
ever  think  she  had  so  much  fun  in  her." 

On  October  8th  I  wrote  home :     "I  send  a  paper 
with  opinions  for  and  against  the  plays.     I  am 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       177 

afraid  there  may  be  demonstrations  against 
Harvest  and  The  Playboy.  The  Liebler  people 
don't  mind,  think  it  will  be  an  advertisement.  I 
was  cheered  by  a  visit  from  some  members  of  the 
Gaelic  League,  saying  they  were  on  our  side  and 
asking  me  to  an  entertainment  next  Sunday,  and 
from  D.  K.,  who  is  very  religious  and  wants  to  go 
into  a  convent.  She  says  the  attacks  on  the  plays 
are  by  very  few  and  don't  mean  anything.  Most 
of  the  society  people  are  in  the  country,  but  they 
motor  in  sixty  or  eighty  miles  for  the  plays.  Last 
night  we  had  a  little  party  on  the  stage:  some 
Gaelic  Leaguers,  who  brought  me  a  bouquet ;  some 
people  from  the  Aran  colony — including  Synge's 
friend,  McDonough,  whom  I  had  also  known  in 
Aran ;  and  from  Kil tartan  Mary  R.  and  a  cousin  and 
Mrs.  Hession's  daughters,  with  the  husband  of 
one.  They  were  very  smart,  one  in  a  white  blouse, 
another  in  a  blue  one  with  pearl  necklace.  You 
must  tell  Mrs.  Hession  they  are  looking  so  well. 
The  management  gave  us  sandwiches  on  the 
stage,  and  punchbowls  of  claret  cup,  and  we  had 
Irish  songs  and  I  called  for  a  cheer  for  Ireland  in 
Boston.  I  enjoyed  very  much  watching  the 
Hession  women  at  the  play.  They  nearly  got 


178  Our  Irish  Theatre 

hysterics  in  Workhouse  Ward,  and  when  the  old 
woman  comes  on,  they  did  not  laugh  but  bent 
forward  and  took  it  quite  seriously.  It  shows  the 
plays  would  have  a  great  success  in  the  country. 
The  County  Galway  Woman's  League  have  asked 
me  to  be  their  president.  .  .  .  Members  of  the 
Gaelic  League  are  working  a  banner  for  me.  They 
showed  me  the  painted  design  at  a  party  given  in 
our  honour.  Yeats  leaves  for  New  York  to-day* 
but  comes  back  for  first  night  of  The  Playboy  next 
Monday  and  sails  Tuesday.  They  are  rather 
afraid  of  trouble,  but  I  think  the  less  controversy 
the  better  now.  It  should  be  left  between  the 
management  and  the  audience. 

"The  manager  says  we  may  stay  longer  in 
Boston,  we  are  doing  so  well.  I  should  like  to 
stay  on.  It  is  a  homey  sort  of  place.  I  am  sent 
quantities  of  flowers,  my  room  is  full  of  roses 
and  carnations." 

Now  as  to  the  trouble  over  The  Playboy.  We 
were  told,  when  we  arrived,  that  opposition  was 
being  organised  from  Dublin,  and  I  was  told  there 
had  already  been  some  attacks  in  a  Jesuit  paper, 
America.  But  the  first  I  saw  was  a  letter  in  the 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       179 

Boston  Post  of  October  4th,  the  writer  of  which 
did  not  wait  for  The  Playboy  to  appear  but  at- 
tacked plays  already  given,  Birthright  and  Hya- 
cinth Halvey.  The  letter  was  headed  in  large 
type,  "Dr.  J.  T.  Gallagher  denounces  the  Irish 
Plays,  says  they  are  Vulgar,  Unnatural,  Anti- 
National,  and  Anti-Christian."  The  writer  de- 
clared himself  astonished  at  "the  parrot-like 
praise  of  the  dramatic  critics."  He  himself  had 
seen  these  two  plays  and  "my  soul  cried  out 
for  a  thousand  tongues  to  voice  my  unutterable 
horror  and  disgust.  ...  I  never  saw  anything 
so  vulgar,  vile,  beastly,  and  unnatural,  so  calcu- 
lated to  calumniate,  degrade,  and  defame  a 
people  and  all  they  hold  sacred  and  dear." 

Birthright,  written  by  a  young  National  school- 
master in  County  Cork,  had  not  been  attacked  in 
Ireland;  both  it  and  my  own  Hyacinth  have  been 
played  not  only  at  the  Abbey  but  in  the  country 
towns  and  villages  with  the  approval  of  the  priests 
and  of  the  Gaelic  League.  Birthright  is  founded 
on  some  of  the  most  ancient  of  stories,  Cain  and 
Abel,  Joseph  and  the  pit,  jealousy  of  the  favoured 
younger  by  the  elder,  a  sudden  anger,  and  "the 
voice  of  thy  brother's  blood  crieth  to  me  from  the 


i8o  Our  Irish  Theatre 

ground."  In  a  photograph  of  the  last  scene  a 
Boston  photographer  had,  to  fill  his  picture, 
brought  on  the  father  and  mother  looking  at  the 
struggle  between  the  brothers,  instead  of  coming 
in,  as  in  the  play,  to  find  but  a  lifeless  body  before 
them.  This  heartlessness  was  often  brought  up 
against  us  by  some  who  had  seen  the  picture  but 
not  the  play,  and  sometimes  by  those  who  had 
seen  both. 

The  Playboy  was  announced  for  October  i6th, 
and  on  the  I4th  the  Gaelic  American  printed  a 
resolution  of  the  United  Irish  Societies  of  New 
York,  in  which  they  pledged  themselves  to  "drive 
the  vile  thing  from  the  stage." 

There  was,  however,  very  little  opposition  in 
the  Plymouth  Theatre.  There  was  a  little  booing 
and  hissing,  but  there  were  a  great  many  Harvard 
boys  among  the  audience  and  whenever  there  was 
a  sign  of  coming  disapproval  they  cheered  enough 
to  drown  it.  Then  they  took  to  cheering  if  any 
sentence  or  scene  was  coming  that  had  been  ob- 
jected to  in  the  newspaper  attacks,  so,  I  am  afraid, 
giving  the  impression  that  they  had  a  particular 
liking  for  strong  expressions.  We  had,  as  I  have 
already  told,  cut  out  many  of  these  long  ago  in 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       181 

Dublin,  and  had  never  put  them  back  when  we 
played  in  England  or  elsewhere ;  and  so  the  enemy's 
paper  confessed  almost  sadly,  "it  was  a  revised 
and  amended  edition  that  they  saw  .  .  .  the 
most  offensive  parts  were  eliminated.  It  was  this 
that  prevented  a  riot.  .  .  .  But  most  of  those 
present  and  all  the  newspaper  men  had  read  the 
excised  portions  in  the  Gaelic  American  and  were 
able  to  fill  the  gaps." 

Because  of  the  attacks  in  some  papers,  the 
Mayor  of  Boston  sent  his  secretary,  Mr.  William 
A.  Leahy,  to  report  upon  The  Playboy,  and  the 
Police  Commissioners  also  sent  their  censor. 
Both  reports  agreed  that  the  performance  was 
not  such  as  to  "justify  the  elimination  of  any 
portion  of  the  play."  Mr.  Leahy  had  already 
written  of  the  other  plays:  "I  have  seen  the  plays 
and  admire  them  immensely.  They  are  most 
artistic,  wonderfully  acted,  and  to  my  mind  abso- 
lutely inoffensive  to  the  patriotic  Irishman.  I 
regret  the  sensitiveness  that  makes  certain  men 
censure  them.  Knowing  what  Mr.  Yeats  and 
Lady  Gregory  want  to  do,  I  cannot  but  hope  that 
they  succeed  and  that  they  are  loyally  supported 
in  America.  My  commendation  cannot  be  ex- 


1 82  Our  Irish  Theatre 

pressed  too  forcibly."  And  after  he  had  seen 
The  Playboy,  he  wrote:  "If  obscenity  is  to  be 
found  on  the  stage  in  Boston,  it  must  be  sought 
elsewhere  and  not  at  the  Plymouth  Theatre." 
After  speaking  with  some  sympathy  of  the  objec- 
tions made  to  the  plays,  he  says:  "The  mistake, 
however,  lies  in  taking  the  pictures  literally. 
Some  of  these  playwrights,  of  course,  are  realists 
or  copyists  of  life  and  like  others  of  their  kind  they 
happen  to  prefer  strong  brine  to  rosewater  and 
see  truth  chiefly  in  the  ugliness  of  things.  But  as 
it  happens  the  two  remarkable  men  among  the 
Irish  playwrights  are  not  realists  at  all.  Yeats 
and  Synge  are  symbolists,  and  their  plays  are  as 
fantastic  and  fabulous  as  the  Tales  of  the  Round 
Table." 

There  was  no  further  trouble  at  Boston.  There 
was  nothing  but  a  welcome  for  all  the  plays,  many 
of  them  already  so  well  known,  especially  through 
Professor  Baker's  dramatic  classes  at  Harvard, 
that  we  were  now  and  again  reproved  by  some  one 
in  the  audience  if  a  line  or  passage  were  left  out, 
by  design  or  forgetfulness.  I  wrote  home  on  Octo- 
ber 22nd:  "Gaston  Mayer  came  yesterday,  repre- 
senting Liebler.  They  are  delighted  with  our 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       183 

success,  and  want  us,  urged  us,  to  stay  till  May. 
We  refused  this,  but  will  certainly  stay  January, 
possibly  a  little  longer.  It  is  rather  a  question 
for  the  Company.  They  want  me  to  stay  all  the 
time.  I  said  I  would  stay  for  the  present.  If  I 
get  tired,  Yeats  will  come  back.  .  .  .  We  had 
the  sad  news  last  night  that  we  are  only  to 
have  one  more  week  here,  and  are  to  do  some 
three  night  places,  opening  at  Providence  on 
the  3Oth.  Mrs.  Gardner  came  to  the  theatre 
this  morning,  furious  at  our  going  so  soon." 

We  said  farewell  to  Boston  October  3Oth.  Yet 
it  was  not  quite  farewell,  for  on  our  last  day  in 
America — March  5th — we  stopped  there  on  the 
way  from  Chicago  to  New  York  and  gave  a 
"flying  matinee";  and  I  brought  home  the  im- 
pression of  that  kind,  crowded  audience,  and  the 
knowledge  that  having  come  among  strangers, 
we  left  real  friends. 

On  October  I3th  I  had  written  from  Boston: 
"  I  am  sorry  to  say  Flynn  (Liebler's  special  agent), 
who  has  been  to  Providence,  announces  strong 
opposition  to  The  Playboy.  A  delegation  came 
to  demand  its  withdrawal,  but  he  refused.  I  had 
also  a  letter  saying  the  Clan-na-Gael  was  very 


1 84  Our  Irish  Theatre 

strong  there,  and  advising  that  we  have  police  at 
hand.  Of  course,  had  we  known  this,  we  should 
not  have  put  on  The  Playboy,  but  we  must  fight 
it  out  now.  The  danger  is  in  not  knowing 
whether  we  shall  get  any  strong  support  there. 
A  Harvard  lad  has  interviewed  me  for  a  maga- 
zine. He  promised  to  try  and  make  up  a  party 
to  go  to  Providence  Tuesday  night,  and  also  to 
stir  up  Brown  University." 

Though  we  all  grieved  at  leaving  friendly 
Boston,  we  found  friends  also  at  Providence,  with 
its  pleasant  name  and  hilly  streets  and  stately  old 
dwelling  houses.  But  a  protest  had  been  made 
before  we  arrived,  and  a  committee  had  waited 
on  the  Police  Commissioners  and  presented  a 
petition  asking  them  to  forbid  the  performance  of 
The  Playboy. 

"I  had  to  appear  before  the  Police  Commission- 
ers this  morning.  The  accusations  were  absurd 
and  easy  to  answer;  most  of  them  founded  upon 
passages  which  have  never  been  said  upon  the  stage. 
I  wish  I  had  been  allowed  to  take  a  copy.  There 
was  one  clause  which  accused  us  of  'giving  the 
world  to  understand  a  barbarous  marriage  custom 
was  in  ordinary  use  in  Ireland. '  This  alluded  to 


"The  Playboy*'  in  America       185 

the  'drift  of  chosen  females  from  the  Eastern 
World/  one  of  those  flights  of  Christy  Mahon's 
fancy  which  have  given  so  much  offence. 
I  showed  them  the  prompt  copy  with  the  acting 
version  we  have  always  used.  Unluckily  the 
enemy  did  n't  turn  up.  Of  course  the  play  is  to 
be  let  go  on,  and  there  are  to  be  plenty  of  police- 
men present  in  case  of  disturbance.  The  police 
people  said  they  had  had  the  same  trouble  about 
a  negro  play  said  to  misrepresent  people  of  colour. 
"  The  Police  Commissioners  themselves  attended 
and  have  published  a  report,  saying  they  not  only 
found  nothing  to  object  to  in  the  play  but  enjoyed 
every  minute  of  it.  Nevertheless,  the  protesting 
committee  published  its  statement:  'How  well 
our  objections  were  founded  may  be  judged  from 
the  fact  that  the  Company  acting  this  play  has 
agreed  to  eliminate  from  it  each  and  every  scene, 
situation,  and  word  to  which  we  objected,  and  it 
is  on  the  basis  of  this  elimination  that  the  play 
has  been  permitted  to  go  on.'  And  I  gave  my 
answer :  '  I  think  it  may  be  as  well  to  state  that  we 
gave  the  play  to-night  exactly  as  it  has  been 
given  in  London,  Oxford,  Cambridge,  Manchester, 
and  many  cities  in  Ireland  and  the  other  night  in 


1 86  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Boston.  The  players  have  never  at  any  time 
anywhere  spoken  all  the  lines  in  the  published 
book."  And  after  its  production  I  wrote  home: 
"Nov.  1st.  The  Playboy  went  very  well  last 
night,  not  an  attempt  to  hiss." 

From  another  town — Lowell — I  wrote:  "A 
newspaper  man  from  Tyrone  lamented  last  night 
the  Playboy  fight.  He  said  all  nationalities  here 
are  very  sensitive.  The  Swedes  had  a  play  taken 
off  that  represented  some  Swedish  women  drink- 
ing. The  French  Canadians,  he  says,  are  as 
touchy  as  the  Irish.  He  said  that  in  consequence 
of  this  sensitiveness,  in  the  police  reports  the 
nationality  of  those  brought  up  before  the  court 
is  not  given.  I  looked  in  the  Lowell  newspaper 
next  day,  and  I  saw  that  this  was  true.  One  Jose 
Viatchka  was  brought  up  charged  with  the  theft 
of  two  yards  of  cloth.  She  was  found  guilty 
and  her  nationality  was  not  given.  Allan  Carter 
made  his  second  appearance  for  drunkenness. 
Being  an  American  citizen,  even  his  dwelling  place, 
Canaan,  N.  H.,  was  not  kept  secret.  Thomas 
Kilkelly  and  Daniel  O'Leary  were  fined  for  drunk- 
enness. I  felt  very  glad  that  their  nationality 
was  not  given!" 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       187 

Yale  like  Harvard  demanded  The  Playboy,  and 
we  put  it  on  for  one  night  at  New  Haven.  Synge's 
plays  and  others  on  our  list  are  being  used  in  the 
course  of  English  literature  there,  and  professors 
and  students  wanted  to  see  them.  We  were 
there  for  Monday  and  Tuesday,  the  6th  and  7th 
of  November.  On  the  first  night  we  put  on  other 
plays.  Next  day  there  was  a  matinee  and  we 
gave  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw's  Blanco  Posnet  and  my 
own  Image.  I  left  before  the  matinee  was  over 
for  Northampton,  as  I  was  to  lecture  that  night 
at  Smith  College.  Next  day  I  was  astonished  to 
see  a  paragraph  in  a  New  Haven  paper,  saying 
that  the  Mayor,  having  been  asked  to  forbid  the 
performance  of  The  Playboy,  had  sent  his  censor, 
the  Chief  of  Police,  Mr.  Cowles,  to  attend  a 
rehearsal  of  it;  that  several  passages  had  been 
objected  to  by  him  and  that  the  manager  had  in 
consequence  suppressed  them,  and  it  had  been 
given  at  the  evening  performance  without  the 
offending  passages.  I  was  astounded.  I  knew 
the  report  could  not  be  correct,  must  be  wholly 
incorrect,  and  yet  one  knows  there  is  never  smoke 
without  even  a  sod  of  turf.  The  players,  who 
arrived  at  Northampton  that  morning,  were 


188  Our  Irish  Theatre 

equally  puzzled.  There  had  been  no  rehearsal, 
and  the  play  had  been  given  as  ever  before.  I 
wired  to  a  friend,  the  head  of  the  University  Press 
at  Yale,  to  investigate  the  matter.  The  explana- 
tion came:  "Chief  Cowles,"  as  the  papers  called 
him,  had  attended,  not  a  rehearsal  but  the  matinee. 
He  was  said  to  have  objected  to  certain  passages, 
though  he  had  not  sent  word  of  this  to  any  of  our 
people.  The  passages  he  objected  to  were  not 
spoken  at  the  evening  performance  of  The  Playboy, 
I  because  the  play  in  which  they  are  spoken  was 
'  Blanco  Posnet.  Yale  laughed  over  this  till  we 
could  almost  hear  the  echoes,  indeed  the  echoes 
appeared  in  the  next  day's  papers.  The  Gaelic 
American,  however,  announced  that  in  New  Haven 
one  of  our  plays  "was  allowed  to  be  presented  only 
after  careful  excision  of  obscene  passages." 

Washington  was  the  next  place  where  The  Play- 
boy was  to  appear.  I  wrote  home  from  there 
on  November  I2th:  "Liebler's  Manager  wired 
for  me  to  come  on  here  and  skip  Albany.  To-day 
two  or  three  priests  preached  against  us,  and  a 
pamphlet  has  been  given  away  at  the  chapel  doors 
denouncing  us.  I  think  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
to  put  it  up  in  the  Hall  of  the  Abbey  framed  for 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       189 

Dublin  people  to  see.  The  worst  news  is  that  the 
players  have  arrived  without  Sinclair.  He  had 
a  fall  down  six  steps  when  coming  down  to  the 
stage  at  Albany  and  hurt  his  back.  The  doctor 
said  it  was  only  the  muscles  that  were  hurt 
and  that  he  would  be  all  right  to-day,  but  he 
has  wired  to-day  that  he  cannot  move.  A  bad 
performance  would  worry  me  more  than  the 
pamphlet. 

"These  are  some  of  its  paragraphs: 

'"The  attention  of  fair-minded  Washingtonians 
is  called  to  a  most  malignant  travesty  of  Irish 
life  and  religion  about  to  be  presented  upon  the 
stage  of  a  local  theatre  by  the  "Irish  Players." 
This  travelling  Company  is  advertised  as  "coming 
from  the  Abbey  Theatre,  Dublin."  True,  but 
they  came  from  Dublin,  followed  by  the  hisses 
and  indignation  of  an  outraged  populace ! 

"A  storm  of  bitter  protest  has  been  raised  in 
every  city  in  which  they  have  presented  their 
false  and  revolting  pictures  of  Irish  life.  Dublin 
people  never  accepted  the  plays.  They  virtually 
kicked  them  from  the  stage.  England  gave  them 
no  reception.' 

"Then  they  quote  'a  Boston  critic'  (this  is  Dr. 


190  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Gallagher,  who  wrote  that  letter  to  the  Boston 
papers) : 

"Nothing  but  hell-inspired  ingenuity  and  a 
satanic  hatred  of  the  Irish  people  and  their  religion 
could  suggest,  construct,  and  influence  the  pro- 
duction of  such  plays.  On  God's  earth  the  beastly 
creatures  of  the  plays  never  existed." 

"'Such  are  the  productions  which,  hissed  from 
Dublin,  hawked  around  England  by  the  "Irish 
Players"  for  the  delectation  of  those  who  wished 
to  see  Irishmen  shown  unfit  for  self-government, 
are  now  offered  to  the  people  of  Washington. 
Will  Washington  tolerate  the  lie? 

'"THE  ALOYSIUS  TRUTH  SOCIETY.' 

"  This  is  the  first  time  any  section  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church  has  come  into  the  fight.  It  is  a  good 
thing  they  denounce  all  the  plays,  not  only  The 
Playboy.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Gaelic  Associ- 
ation, of  which  Monsignor  Shahan,  President  of 
the  Catholic  University,  is  head,  has  asked  me 
to  address  its  meeting  next  Thursday,  and,  of 
course,  I  shall  do  so. 

"  This  invitation  was  incorrectly  reported  in 
the  papers,  and  Monsignor  Shahan,  who  is  just 
leaving  for  Rome,  has  denied  having  '  invited  the 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       191 

Irish  Players  to  speak.'  The  invitations  sent 
out,  printed  cards  with  his  printed  signature,  had 
asked  people  to  come  and  hear  me  speak,  and  I 
did  so  and  had  a  good  audience;  and  a  resolution 
was  proposed,  praising  all  I  had  done  for  literature 
and  the  theatre,  and  making  me  the  first  Honorary 
Member  of  the  Association,  and  this  was  agreed 
to  by  the  whole  meeting  with  applause.1' 

For  among  the  surprises  of  the  autumn  I  had 
suddenly  found  that  I  could  speak.  I  was  quite 
miserable  when,  on  arriving  in  Boston,  I  found 
it  had  been  arranged  for  me  to  "say  a  few  words" 
at  various  clubs  or  gatherings.  I  thought  a  regu- 
lar lecture  would  be  better.  If  it  failed,  I  would 
not  be  asked  again  or  I  would  have  an  excuse  for 
silence.  It  would  be  easier,  too,  in  a  way  than 
the  "few  words,"  for  I  should  know  how  long 
the  lecture  ought  to  be  and  what  people  wanted 
to  hear  about,  and  I  would  have  the  assurance 
that  they  knew  what  they  were  coming  for  in- 
stead of  having  a  stranger  let  loose  on  them  just 
as  they  were  finishing  their  lunch.  It  was  at  one 
of  these  lunches  that  that  wonderful  woman  who 
has  in  Boston,  as  the  Medici  in  Florence,  spent 
wealth  and  vitality  and  knowledge  in  making 


192  Our  Irish  Theatre 

such  a  collection  of  noble  pictures  as  proves  once 
more  that  it  is  the  individual,  the  despot,  who  is 
necessary  for  such  a  task — bringing  the  clear  con- 
ception, the  decision  of  one  mind  in  place  of  the 
confusion  of  many — liked  what  I  said  and  offered 
me  for  my  first  trial  the  spacious  music  room  of 
Fenway  Court. 

I  spoke  on  playwriting,  for  I  had  begun  that 
art  so  late  in  life  that  its  rules,  those  I  had  worked 
out  for  myself  or  learned  from  others,  were  still 
fresh  in  my  mind;  and  I  wrote  home  with  more 
cheerfulness  than  I  had  felt  during  the  days  of 
preparation,  that  I  thought  and  was  assured  my 
address  had  gone  well ;  "what  I  was  most  proud  of 
was  keeping  it  exactly  to  the  hour.  I  was  glad  to 
find  I  could  fill  up  so  much  time.  I  had  notes  on 
the  table  and  just  glanced  at  them  now  and  again 
but  did  n't  hesitate  for  a  word  or  miss  my  points. 
It  is  a  great  relief  to  me  and  the  discovery  of  a 
new  faculty.  I  shan't  feel  nervous  again;  that  is 
a  great  thing." 

I  had  boasted  of  this  a  little  too  soon,  for  the 
next  letter  says:  "I  had  a  nice  drive  yesterday, 
twenty-five  miles  to  B.  A  lady  called  for  me  in 
her  motor,  and  we  passed  through  several  pretty 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       193 

little  New  England  villages  and  through  woods. 
Then  a  wait  of  an  hour  before  lecture,  keeping 
up  small  talk  and  feeling  nervous  all  the  time, 
then  the  lecture.  I  forgot  to  bring  my  watch  and 
gave  them  twenty  minutes  over  the  hour!  It  was 
a  difficult  place  to  speak  in,  a  private  house, — a 
room  to  the  right,  a  room  to  the  left,  and  a  room 
behind.  However  they  seemed  to  hear  all  right. 
...  I  had  a  nice  run  home  alone  in  the  dark." 

I  gave  my  ideas  on  "  playwriting "  again  at 
Philadelphia,  and  was  told  just  before  I  began  that 
there  were  several  dramatists  in  the  room,  includ- 
ing the  author  of  Madame  Butterfly.  So  I  had 
to  apologise  on  the  ground  of  an  inferior  cook 
being  flattered  at  being  asked  to  give  recipes, 
whereas  a  real  chef  keeps  the  secrets  to  himself. 
And  sometimes  at  the  end  of  all  my  instruction 
on  the  rules  I  gave  the  hearers  as  a  benediction, 

"And  may  you  better  reck  the  rede 
Than  ever  did  the  adviser!" 

Mr.  Yeats,  when  lecturing  in  America,  had 
written  to  me  from  Bryn  Mawr:  "I  have  just 
given  my  second  lecture.  .  .  .  They  are  getting 
all  our  books  here  now.  Do  you  know  I  have  not 


194  Our  Irish  Theatre 

met  a  single  woman  here  who  puts  'tin-tacks  in 
the  soup,'  and  I  find  that  the  woman  who  does,  is 
recognised  as  an  English  type.  One  teacher 
explained  to  me  the  difference  in  this  way:  'We 
prepare  the  girls  to  live  their  lives,  but  in  England 
they  are  making  them  all  teachers. ' ' 

And  I  also  was  delighted  with  the  girls'  colleges 
and  wrote  home : 

"At  Vassar  the  girls  were  playing  a  football 
game  in  sympathy  with  the  Harvard  and  Yale 
match  going  on.  They  were  all  dressed  as  boys, 
had  made  up  trousers,  or  knickers,  and  some 
were  playing  on  combs  to  represent  a  band,  and 
singing  the  Yale  song,  though  the  sham  Harvard 
had  beaten  the  sham  Yale  by  25  to  5.  They  are 
nice,  merry  girls,  I  think  as  nice  as  at  Smith's, 
where  I  promised  to  suggest  my  granddaughter 
should  be  educated.  I  had  an  audience  of  about 
six  hundred,  a  very  good  and  pleasant  one,  nearly 
all  girls  and  a  few  men.  The  President  was 
sitting  close  to  the  door,  and  I  asked  him  to  call 
out  to  me  to  speak  up  if  he  did  n't  hear,  as  I  was 
young  as  a  lecturer  and  always  afraid  my  voice 
might  not  reach.  He  said  he  would  not  like  to  do 
that,  but  would  hold  up  a  handkerchief  if  I  was 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       195 

to  speak  louder.  About  the  middle  of  the  lecture 
I  saw  him  very  slowly  raise  a  handkerchief  to  the 
level  of  his  face,  but  I  could  not  catch  his  eye,  so 
I  stopped  and  asked  if  that  was  the  signal.  He 
was  quite  confused  and  said,  No,  he  wanted  to 
blow  his  nose,  and  the  girls  shrieked  with  delight. 
He  told  me  afterwards  he  had  held  out  as  long 
as  he  could.  The  girls  had  acted  some  of  my 
plays.  The  Jackdaw  is  a  great  favourite  there 
as  well  as  at  Smith's,  where  they  have  conjugated 
a  verb  'to  Jackdaw.'  One  of  the  'Faculty'  said 
she  doubted  if  our  players  could  do  Gaol  Gate  as 
well  as  Mr.  Kennedy,  the  author  of  The  Servant  in 
the  House,  reads  it.  .  .  ." 

These  lectures  gave  me  opportunity  of  seeing 
many  places  where  our  plays  did  not  go,  and  I 
have  delighted  memories  of  rushing  waters  in 
Detroit,  and  of  little  girls  dancing  in  cruciform 
Columbus,  and  of  the  roar  of  Niagara  Falls,  and 
the  stillness  of  the  power  house  that  sends  that 
great  energy  to  create  light  and  motion  a  hundred 
or  two  hundred  miles  away,  and  of  many  another 
wide-spreading,  kindly  city  where  strangers  wel- 
comed me,  and  I  seemed  to  say  good-bye  to 
friends.  Dozing  in  midnight  trains,  I  would 


196  Our  Irish  Theatre 

remember,  as  in  a  dream,  "the  flight  of  a  bird 
through  a  lighted  hall,"  the  old  parable  of  human 
life. 

To  return  to  the  meeting  at  Washington: 

"  I  had  to  get  away  early  because  Mrs.  Taft  had 
asked  me  to  the  White  House  to  hear  the  Mormon 
choir.  I  arrived  there  rather  late  but  the  music 
was  going  on.  It  was  a  very  pretty  sight,  the 
long  white  room  with  fine  old  glass  chandeliers, 
and  two  hundred  Mormons — the  men  in  black, 
the  women  in  white — and  about  fifty  guests.  I 
heard  one  chorus,  and  they  sang  'The  Star- 
Spangled  Banner,'  and  everyone  stood  up.  Then 
we  moved  about  and  chatted,  and  I  was  presented 
to  the  President — pleasant  enough,  but  one  doesn't 
feel  him  on  the  stage  like  Roosevelt. 

"To-day  I  had  a  very  scattered  rehearsal  of 
Spreading  the  News.  The  players  kept  slipping 
out  by  a  back  door,  and  I  found  the  negroes  were 
dancing  and  singing  out  there,  it  being  their  dinner 
hour.  It  was,  of  course,  irresistible." 

One  day  when  we  went  to  rehearsal,  the  sun 
was  shining  and  I  offered  the  players  a  holiday 
and  picnic  to  Mount  Vernon,  and  we  crossed  the 
river  and  spent  the  day  there  very  pleasantly. 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       197 

Donovan  said,  "No  wonder  a  man  should  fight 
for  such  a  home  as  this."  I  told  them  the  holiday 
was  not  a  precedent,  for  we  might  go  to  a  great 
many  countries  before  finding  so  great  a  man  to 
honour.  Washington  had  been  a  friend  of  my 
grandfather's,  who  had  been  in  America  with  his 
regiment.  There  was  a  case  of  stuffed  birds  at 
Roxborough  which  was  said  to  have  been  a 
present  from  Washington,  and  there  was  a  field 
there  called  Mount  Vernon.  My  grandfather 
had  built  a  little  sea  lodge  on  the  Burren  coast 
and  had  called  that  also  Mount  Vernon,  so 
I  was  specially  interested  in  seeing  the  house. 
It  is  beautifully  kept  and  filled  with  memorials  of 
its  owner  and  with  furniture  that  belonged  to  him. 
The  Americans  keep  their  sacred  places  well.  A 
school  at  which  I  lectured  wanted  to  give  me  a  fee ; 
but  I  did  not  wish  to  take  one,  and  I  said  when 
they  pressed  it,  that  I  had  seen  in  a  shop  window 
an  old  jug  with  portraits  of  Washington  and  of 
Lafayette  on  it,  and  had  wished  for  it,  but  it  was 
nine  dollars  and  I  was  refraining  from  luxuries, 
and  that  I  would  accept  that  if  they  liked.  So 
it  was  sent  to  me,  and  I  brought  it  safely  home  to 
add  to  my  collection  of  historic  delft.  It  has  the 


198  Our  Irish  Theatre 

date  1824.  It  was  made  to  commemorate  La- 
fayette's visit  at  that  time,  and  the  words  on  it  are, 
"A  Republic  is  not  always  ungrateful."  It  now 
stands  near  another  jug  of  about  the  same  date, 
on  which  there  is  the  portrait  of  that  other  patriot 
beloved  by  his  people,  O'Connell. 

On  November  i8th  I  arrived  at  New  York. 
All  my  work  was  easier  from  that  time  through 
the  help  of  my  friend  of  some  ten  years,  Mr. 
John  Quinn.  I  had  a  pleasant  little  set  of 
rooms  at  the  Algonquin  Hotel.  I  said  to  Mr. 
Flynn,  Liebler's  manager,  when  I  arrived  there, 
"Is  it  near  the  theatre?  Shall  I  be  able  to 
walk  there?"  "Walk  there,"  he  said,  "why 
you  could  throw  a  cricket  ball  to  it."  I  did 
walk  there  and  back  many  times  a  day  during 
my  stay,  and  grew  fond  of  the  little  corner  of  the 
city  I  got  to  know  so  well ;  but  I  sometimes  envied 
the  cricket  ball  that  would  have  escaped  the  dan- 
gerous excitement  of  the  five  crossings,  one  of 
them  across  6th  Avenue,  with  motors  dashing  in 
all  directions,  and  railway  trains  thundering  over- 
head. The  theatre  was  charming,  I  wish  we 
could  carry  it  about  on  all  our  tours,  and  I  was 
given  a  little  room  off  the  stage,  which  had  been 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       199 

Maxine  Elliott's  own  room,  and  where  players  and 
guests  often  had  tea  with  me. 

"Hotel  Algonquin,  New  York,  Monday,  2Oth 
November.  We  opened  very  well  last  night.  A 
crowded  house  and  very  enthusiastic,  Rising  of  the 
Moon,  Birthright,  and  Spreading  the  News  were 
given.  All  got  five  or  more  curtains.  One 
man  made  rather  a  disturbance  at  the  fight  in 
Birthright,  saying  it  was  '  not  Irish, '  but  his  voice 
was  drowned  and  he  left.  I  was  told  that  - 
one  of  the  enemy  who  was  there,  said,  'Such 
things  do  not  happen  in  Ireland ;  they  may  happen 
in  Lady  Gregory's  own  family.'  The  Playboy 
is  to  be  put  on  next  week.  J.  Q.  seems  a  bit 
anxious  about  The  Playboy;  says  they  may 
'throw  things,'  and  that  seems  what  the  Gaelic 
American  is  inviting  them  to  do  when  it  says 
The  Playboy  'must  be  squelched'  and  a  lesson 
taught  to  Mr.  Yeats  and  his  fellow-agents  of  4 
England,  and  that  I  have  no  right  to  appeal  for 
respect  for  my  sex. 

"Last  night  as  I  went  into  the  theatre  I  heard 
my  name  spoken,  and  a  girl  told  me  she  was  the 
daughter  of  old  Matt  Cahel,  the  blacksmith  who 
had  lived  at  Roxborough,  and  she  had  come  to  see 


2oo  Our  Irish  Theatre 

the  plays  and  said  her  father  would  have  been  so 
proud,  if  he  had  lived,  to  know  I  was  here.  I  am 
glad  of  this,  for  I  hear  the  plays  were  preached 
against  by  some  priests  last  Sunday.  Father 
Flanagan  thinks  the  attacks  all  come  from  Dublin. 
The  players  are  convinced  they  are  from  some  of 
our  non-paying  guests.  ...  I  think  we  must 
revise  that  list.  The  Playboy  is  to  be  put  on  next 
Monday.  I  am  glad  they  are  not  putting  off  the 
fight  any  longer.  It  tries  the  players'  nerves. 
It  will  be  on  for  four  nights  and  a  matinee.  By 
going  behind  myself  and  gathering  a  party  and 
cheering  with  what  voice  I  had  left,  I  at  last 
got  the  shouts  for  Hughie  in  Birthright  to  be  less 
of  a  mournful  wail." 

"Friday,  November  24th.     I  have  been  to-day 

to  lunch  with  Mrs.  ,  a  Catholic  lady  I  had 

met  in  London,  who  gave  a  lunch  to  me  to  show 
she  was  on  our  side.  There  was  a  Father  X.  there, 
who  is  not  in  this  diocese  and  is  very  much  shocked 
at  the  action  of  the  priests.  One  told  his  congre- 
gation on  Sunday  from  the  altar,  it  would  be  a 
mortal  sin  to  come  to  the  plays,  and  another, 
Father  X.  says,  to  his  certain  knowledge  advised 
his  people  from  the  altar  if  they  did  come,  to 


"The  Playboy"  in  America      201 

bring  eggs  to  throw.  Mr.  Hackett  was  sitting 
behind  a  woman  who  said  in  Birthright  'it 's  a 
pity  it  ain't  Lady  Gregory  they  are  choking.' 
Mr.  Quinn  heard  I  held  a  salon  at  the  theatre 
and  it  is  wonderful  how  many  people  turn  up  or 
come  to  express  sympathy.  I  got  a  good  rehearsal 
to-day  of  Mixed  Marriage,  which  I  think  might 
take  very  well  here." 

"26th.  Plenty  of  booking  for  Playboy  whether 
by  friends  or  enemies.  I  went  to  lecture  at  Vas- 
sar  yesterday.  I  had  no  idea  the  Hudson  was  so 
beautiful.  The  train  was  close  to  the  brink  all  the 
way,  and  opposite  are  wooded  cliffs  and  heights, 
and  at  night,  coming  back,  the  lighted  towns  on 
the  other  side  gave  a  magic  atmosphere.  I  find 
new  scenery  an  extraordinary  excitement  and 
delight.  I  am  going  off  just  now  to  Oyster  Bay 
for  the  night  to  visit  the  Roosevelts.  I  have  been 
to  church  this  morning  and  feel  fresher." 

"Algonquin,  Monday,  27th.  When  John 
Quinn  came  yesterday  afternoon,  he  brought 
Gregg  with  him.  Both  had  heard  from  different 
sources  that  The  Playboy  is  to  be  attacked  to- 
night. The  last  Gaelic  American  says,  'The  New 
York  Irish  will  send  the  Anti-Irish  Players  back 


202  Our  Irish  Theatre 

to  Dublin  like  whipped  curs  with  their  tails  be- 
tween their  legs. '  Quinn  heard  it  from  a  man  he 
knows  well,  who  had  called  him  up  to  say  there  is 
a  party  of  rowdies  coming  to  the  theatre  to-night 
to  make  their  demonstration.  They  thought  it 
possible  this  might  be  stopped  by  letting  the  enemy 
know  we  are  prepared,  but  I  thought  it  better 
to  let  them  show  themselves.  They  have  been 
threatening  us  so  long ;  we  shall  see  who  they  are. 

"This  morning  I  saw  Flynn  and  Gaston  Mayer 
and  told  them  the  matter  was  out  of  my  hands 
now,  that  we  don't  want  interviews  or  argument, 
and  that  it  is  a  question  between  Liebler  and  the 
mob.  Flynn  went  off  to  the  police,  and  I  have 
not  heard  anything  since.  I  have  not  told  the 
players." 

"Tuesday,  November  28th.  The  papers  give 
a  fairly  accurate  account  of  what  happened  last 
night.1  There  was  a  large  audience,  The  Gaol 
Gate  was  put  on  first,  which,  of  course,  has  never 
offended  anyone  in  Ireland,  but  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  coughing  going  on  and  there  was  unrest 
in  the  gallery.  But  one  man  was  heard  saying 
to  another,  '  This  is  all  right.  You  need  n't 

1  See  extract  in  appendix. 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       203 

interrupt  this.  Irishmen  do  die  for  their  neigh- 
bours.'  Another  said,  'This  is  a  part  of  The 
Playboy  that  is  going  on  now,  but  they  are  giving 
it  under  another  name.'  Very  soon  after  the 
curtain  went  up  on  The  Playboy  the  interrup- 
tions began.  The  managers  had  been  taking  much 
too  confident  a  view,  saying,  'These  things  don't 
happen  in  New  York.'  When  this  did  happen, 
there  were  plenty  of  police,  but  they  would  n't 
arrest  anyone  because  no  one  gave  the  order,  and 
the  disturbance  was  let  go  on  nearly  all  through 
the  first  act.  I  went  round,  when  the  disturbance 
began,  and  knelt  in  the  opening  of  the  hearth, 
calling  to  every  actor  who  came  within  earshot 
that  they  must  not  stop  for  a  moment  but  must 
spare  their  voices,  as  they  could  not  be  heard, 
and  we  should  do  the  whole  act  over  again.  At 
the  end  Tyler  came  round  and  I  was  delighted 
when  he  shouted  that  it  should  be  played  again. 
O' Donovan  announced  this  and  there  were  great 
cheers  from  the  audience.  And  the  whole  play 
was  given  then  in  perfect  peace  and  quiet.  The 
editor  of  the  Gaelic  American  and  his  bodyguard 
were  in  the  stalls,  two  rows  of  them.  They  were 
pointed  out  to  me  when  I  came  in.  The  disturbers 


204  Our  Irish  Theatre 

were  very  well  arranged;  little  groups  here  and 
there.  In  the  box  office  this  morning  they  have 
a  collection  of  spoils  left  by  the  enemy  (chiefly 
stink-pots  and  rosaries).  A  good  many  potatoes 
were  thrown  on  the  stage  and  an  old  watch,  and 
a  tin  box  with  a  cigar  in  it  and  a  cigarette  box. 
Our  victory  was  complete  in  the  end. 

"Ten  men  were  arrested.  Two  of  them  were 
bar-tenders;  one  a  liquor  dealer;  two  clerks;  one 
a  harness-maker;  one  an  instructor;  one  a  mason; 
one  a  compositor,  and  one  an  electrician. 

"Some  of  the  police  who  protected  us  were 
Irish.  One  of  them  said  to  our  manager,  Mr. 
Robinson :  '  There  's  a  Kerryman  says  he  has  you 
pictured  and  says  he  '11  have  your  life.  *  Mr. 
Robinson  had  had  some  words  with  this  Kerryman 
and  had  said:  'We  '11  give  you  a  supper  when  you 
come  to  Dublin, '  and  the  Kerryman  had  answered, 
'We  '11  give  you  a  wake.' 

"The  disturbers  were  fined  sums  from  three  to 
ten  dollars  each." 

"28th.  I  was  talking  to  Roosevelt  about  the 
opposition  on  Sunday  and  he  said  he  could  not 
get  in  to  the  plays :  Mrs.  Roosevelt  not  being  well, 
he  did  not  like  to  leave  home.  But  when  I  said 


"The  Playboy"  in  America      205 

it  would  be  a  help  to  us,  he  said,  '  Then  I  will  cer- 
tainly come, '  and  settled  that  to-night  he  will  dine 
with  me  and  come  on." 

"Wednesday,  29th.  I  was  in  such  a  rush  last 
night  I  sent  off  my  letters  very  untidily.  I  had  n't 
time  even  to  change  my  dress  for  dinner.  It  went 
off  very  well.  John  Quinn,  Col.  Emmet,  grand- 
nephew  of  the  Patriot,  Mr.  Flynn.  I  had  asked 
Peter  Dunne  (Mr.  Dooley)  but  he  was  engaged 
to  dinner  at  eight  at  the  Guinnesses.  He 
came,  however,  at  seven  and  sat  through  ours. 
He  was  very  amusing,  and  he  and  Roosevelt 
chaffed  each  other.  .  .  .  When  we  got  to  the 
theatre  and  into  the  box,  people  saw  Roosevelt  and 
began  to  clap  and  at  last  he  had  to  get  up,  and  he 
took  my  hand  and  dragged  me  on  my  feet  too, 
and  there  was  renewed  clapping.  .  .  .  Towards 
the  end  of  Gaol  Gate  there  was  a  great  outbreak  of 
coughing  and  sneezing,  and  then  there  was  a 
scuffle  in  the  gallery  and  a  man  throwing  pepper 
was  put  out.  There  was  a  scuffle  now  and  then 
during  The  Playboy  but  nothing  violent  and  always 
great  clapping  when  the  offender  was  thrown  out. 
We  played  with  the  lights  up.  After  the  first  act 
I  took  my  party  on  to  the  stage  and  introduced 


206  Our  Irish  Theatre 

the  players,  and  Roosevelt  spoke  separately  to 
them  and  then  made  a  little  speech,  saying  how 
much  he  admired  them  and  that  he  felt  they  were 
doing  a  great  deal  to  increase  the  dignity  of  Ire- 
land (he  has  adopted  my  phrase)  and  that  he 
'envied  them  and  Lady  Gregory  for  America.' 
They  were  quite  delighted  and  Kerrigan  had  tears 
in  his  eyes.  Roosevelt's  daughter,  who  was  with 
another  party,  then  appeared  and  he  introduced 
her  to  them,  remembering  all  the  names,  'This  is 
Mr.  Morgan,  this  is  Miss  Magee.  .  .  .'  I  brought 
him  a  cup  of  tea  and  it  was  hard  to  tear  him  away 
when  the  curtain  went  up. 

"I  stayed  in  my  room  writing  letters  through 
the  second  act,  and  when  I  came  back,  a  swarm 
of  reporters  was  surrounding  Roosevelt  and  he  was 
declaring  from  the  box,  'I  would  as  soon  discuss 
the  question  as  discuss  a  pipe  dream  with  an  out- 
patient of  Bedlam.'  This  was  about  an  accusa- 
tion they  had  just  shown  him  in  some  paper, 
saying  he  had  had  a  secret  understanding  with 
some  trusts.  He  was  shaking  his  fist  and  saying, 
4 1  am  giving  you  that  straight ;  mind  you,  take  it 
down  as  I  say  it.'  When  the  play  was  over,  he 
stayed  in  the  box  a  few  minutes  discussing  it; 


"The  Playboy"  in  America      207 

he  said  he  would  contribute  a  note  on  an  article 
he  wants  John  Quinn  to  write  about  us.  When 
we  left  the  box,  we  found  the  whole  route  to  the 
door  packed,  just  a  narrow  lane  we  could  walk 
through,  and  everyone  taking  off  hats  and  looking 
at  him  with  real  reverence  and  affection,  so  unlike 
those  royal  crowds  in  London.  It  was  an  extra- 
ordinary kindness  that  he  did  us. " 

The  Mayor  had  received  a  protest  against  the 
play  and  on  that  second  night  he  sent  as  his  repre- 
sentative the  Chief  Magistrate,  Mr.  McAdoo, 
who  had  formerly  been  a  member  of  Congress, 
had  served  as  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
and  as  Police  Commissioner  of  New  York,  and  is 
a  leading  citizen  of  the  city. 

The  New  York  Sun,  in  the  issue  of  November 
3Oth,  summarised  his  report : 

"Chief  Magistrate  McAdoo,  who  was  sent  by 
Mayor  Gaynor  on  Tuesday  night  to  see  The  Play- 
boy of  the  Western  World,  wrote  to  the  Mayor 
yesterday  that  he  had  sat  through  the  play  and 
had  seen  nothing  in  it  to  warrant  the  fuss  which 
some  Irishmen  were  making.  Magistrate  McAdoo 
told  the  Mayor  that  it  was  not  nearly  as  objec- 
tionable as  scores  of  American  plays  he  had  seen 


208  Our  Irish  Theatre 

in  this  city  and  that  there  was  no  reason  why  the 
Mayor  should  either  order  the  withdrawal  of  the 
play  or  suspend  the  licence  of  Maxine  Elliott's 
Theatre.  The  Mayor  said  that  the  letter  had 
satisfied  him  that  there  was  no  need  of  any  action 
by  the  city  and  that  so  far  as  he  was  concerned 
the  matter  was  closed." 

"Of  the  few  arrested  on  the  second  night  one 
was  an  Englishman,  who  objected  to  British 
soldiers  being  spoken  of  as  'khaki  cut  -throats, ' 
and  one  was  a  Jew,  who  did  not  give  his  reasons. 
For  the  accusations  were  getting  more  and  more 
mixed.  A  man  was  heard  asking  outside  the 
Maxine  Elliott  Theatre  during  the  riot,  'What  is 
on  to-night?'  and  the  answer  was,  'There  's  a  Jew- 
man  inside  has  a  French  play  and  he  's  letting  on 
it 's  Irish,  and  some  of  the  lads  are  inside  talking 
to  them. ' 

"I  have  had  a  nice  letter  from  Rothenstein. 
He  is  here  painting  some  portraits.  He  says,  'I 
would  have  been  to  pay  you  my  respects  but 
unhappily  I  have  for  the  second  time  been  laid 
up.  I  hope  I  may  still  get  the  chance,  and  that 
the  charming  and  brilliant  people  I  saw  with 
such  delight  in  London  are  getting  their  due.  I 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       209 

want  to  bring  some  friends  to  see  them  this  week, 
and  am  looking  forward  to  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
them  again.'  This  was  written  on  the  morning 
of  the  28th,  and  he  adds  a  postscript:  'Since 
writing  I  see  at  breakfast  an  account  of  a  big  fuss 
you  had  last  night.  I  think  it  is  a  fine  thing  that 
a  work  of  art  should  have  so  vital  an  effect  on 
people  that  they  feel  towards  it  as  they  do  towards 
life,  and  wish  to  exalt  or  to  destroy  it.  In  these 
days  when  there  is  so  little  understanding  of  the 
content  and  so  much  said  about  the  technique  of 
these  things,  I  do  feel  refreshed  that  such  a  thing 
can  happen.  I  hope  the  physical  experience  was 
not  too  trying.  I  admire  the  courage  and  deter- 
mination which  both  sides  showed.  If  a  country 
can  produce  so  great  a  man  as  Synge  and  a  public 
so  spirited  that  it  will  protest  against  what  seems 
a  wrong  presentment  of  life  to  them,  then  we  may 
still  have  hope  that  art  will  find  a  place  by  the 
fireside.  I  take  my  hat  off  to  you  all. ' ' 

"December  1st.  All  well  last  night.  Galleries 
filled,  and  apparently  with  Irish,  all  applauding, 
not  one  hiss. 

"  I  was  asked  at  a  tea-party  'what  was  my  moral 
purpose  in  writing  The  Playboy!1' 
14 


210  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Mr.  Yeats  wrote  from  Dublin  when  he  heard  of 
the  riot :  ' '  December  3d.  What  a  courageous  man 
Roosevelt  is !  I  mean  courageous  to  go  so  much  be- 
yond official  routine.  I  think  it  is  the  best  thing 
that  has  ever  happened  to  us  so  far  as  opinion  here 
is  concerned.  The  papers  here  have  been  exceed- 
ingly venomous.  I  am  having  a  baize-covered 
board  with  a  glass  frame  to  fit  in  it  put  up  in  the 
vestibule,  and  promised  the  audience  yesterday, 
speaking  from  the  stage,  that  I  would  put  up  the 
American  notices  as  they  reached  us,  good  and 
bad  alike.  At  present  I  have  put  up  an  old 
picture  frame  with  the  rather  lengthy  London 
notices  of  the  row.  I  think  it  wise  that  our  own 
people  should  know  that  they  see  there  on  the 
board  some  proof  of  the  reception  we  are  getting. 
.  .  .  Shaw  has  just  sent  me  a  copy  of  an  interview 
he  is  sending  to  the  New  York  Sun.  He  says  you 
are  'the  greatest  living  Irishwoman,'  and  adds 
you  will  beat  the  Clan  na  Gael  as  you  beat  the 
Castle.  He  makes  a  most  amusing  and  ferocious 
attack  on  the  Clan  na  Gael,  and  says  they  are  not 
Irish.  .  .  .  But  I  forgot,  you  will  have  read  it 
before  this  reaches  you.  I  hope  he  will  not  have 
left  you  all  in  the  plight  the  little  boy  was  in  after 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       211 

Don  Quixote  had  beaten  his  master.  He  will, 
at  any  rate,  have  amused  New  York,  which  does 
not  care  for  the  Clan,  and  all  fuel  helps  when  one 
wants  a  fire.  I  am  pleased  that  he  has  seen  the 
issue — that  we  are  the  true  Ireland  fighting  the 
false." 

I  wrote  home  on  December  I  st.  "  The  Company 
have  signed  on  till  end  of  February,  so  I  shall  most 
likely  stay  till  then.  The  only  thing  I  am  at  all 
afraid  of  is  want  of  sleep.  I  don't  get  much. 
Everyone  says  the  climate  here  is  exciting,  but 
I  may  get  used  to  it,  and  we  have  had  exciting 
times. 

"I  have  made  my  little  room  off  the  stage  into 
a  greenroom,  and  brought  some  books  there  and 
made  regular  arrangements  for  tea.  There  are 
no  greenrooms  in  these  theatres  and  the  Company 
look  rather  miserable  straying  about.  Mrs.  G.  is 
lending  me  her  motor  this  afternoon  and  I  am 
taking  some  of  the  players  for  a  drive  and  to 
Quinn's  for  tea.  He  is  such  a  help  to  me,  so  cap- 
able and  kind.  My  December  horoscope,  I 
remember,  said,  'Benefit  through  friends'  and  I 
think  it  comes  about  a  month  wrong  and  that 
things  happen  in  the  previous  month,  for  in  No- 


212  Our  Irish  Theatre 

vember  I  had  help  from  him  and  Bernard  Shaw 
and  Roosevelt! 

"A  priest  came  in  yesterday  to  express  his 
sympathy,  and  attended  the  plays,  and  I  took  him 
round  to  see  the  players.  So  far  'the  Church* 
has  not  pronounced  against  us,  only  individual 
priests.  .  .  .  The  servant  maids  are  told  we  are 
'  come  to  mock  Ireland. '  We  are  answering  no- 
thing now,  just  going  on.  Bernard  Shaw's  article 
is  splendid,  going  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  as  you 
say.  I  am  just  now  going  over  to  the  theatre  to 
see  the  start  of  the  voice-production  classes.  .  .  . 
I  determined  there  should  be  a  beginning." 

"  Dec.  1 2th.  The  luncheon  with  the  Outlook  was 
great  fun.  There  were  present  the  editors,  an 
Admiral,  and  some  other  military  heroes,  and  after 
lunch  some  one  called  for  silence '  that  Lady  Gregory 
might  be  questioned.'  So  they  asked  questions 
from  here  and  there,  and  I  gave  answers.  For 
instance,  they  asked  if  the  riot  had  affected  our 
audience,  and  I  said,  yes,  I  was  afraid  more  people 
had  come  to  see  us  pelted  than  playing.  And  that 
I  had  met  a  few  nights  before  in  Buffalo  a  General 
Green,  who  told  me  that  when  driving  through 
crowds  cheering  for  Roosevelt,  he  had  said  to 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       213 

Roosevelt,  'Theodore,  don't  you  feel  elated  by 
this?'  And  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  said,  'Frank,  I 
always  keep  in  mind  what  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
said  on  a  similar  occasion,  "  How  many  more  would 
come  to  see  me  hanged'"  (great  applause).  .  .  . 
Someone  asked  me  why  I  had  worked  so  hard  at 
the  Theatre,  and  I  quoted  Blake: 

I  will  not  cease  from  mental  strife 
Or  let  the  sword  fall  from  my  hand 
Till  we  have  built  Jerusalem 
In — Ireland's — fair  and  lovely  land. 

"For,  I  said,  it  was  a  part  of  the  building  of 
Jerusalem.  This  went  very  well,  and  in  my  lec- 
ture at  Brooklyn  in  the  evening  I  tried  it  again, 
but  it  was  received  with  roars  of  delighted  laughter. 
It  was  explained  to  me  afterwards  that  a  part  of 
Brooklyn  is  full  of  Jews,  who  are  trying  to  turn  it 
into  a  Jerusalem  of  their  own! 

"Oh,  I  am  tired  to-night!" 

"Dec.  1 5th.  Mrs.  -  — ,  the  Catholic  friend 
who  is  working  for  us,  is  sending  to-day  to  the 
Tablet  a  very  good  notice  of  us  written  by  a  priest. 
She  says  educated  priests  and  Catholics  generally 
are  so  much  ashamed  of  the  riot  that  they  give 


214  Our  Irish  Theatre 

out  it  was  got  up  by  the  management!  She 
wanted  me  to  have  this  contradicted,  but  of 
course  it  would  be  useless.  I  have  just  had  the 
Outlook  and  will  send  it  on  to  you.  Roosevelt 
'commanded'  Quinn  to  write  an  article  on  us. 
He  said  he  could  n't,  but  I  think  it  is  charming." 

"Sunday,  27th.  I  don't  think  the  Church  will 
really  turn  on  us.  It  would  bring  it  into  a 
fight  with  all  the  theatres  and  that  would  make 
it  unpopular.  Here  Catholics  take  care  to  say, 
'It  is  not  the  Church  that  is  against  you,  only 
certain  priests.'  Father  Y.  telephoned  me  this 
afternoon,  saying  he  was  praying  for  us  every  day 
and  for  the  success  of  our  work,  and  that  he  thinks 
Workhouse  Ward  as  fine  as  Shakespeare !  Another 
priest,  Father  Z.,  Chaplain  in  the  Navy,  has  asked 
me  to  tea,  and  says  he  will  come  to  see  the  plays, 
only  not  The  Playboy." 

"A  nice  matinee  yesterday.  My  friend  the 
wild  Irishman  who  comes  to  the  theatre,  tells  me 
the  Irish  are  'waiting  for  us'  in  Chicago,  but  I 
don't  see  what  they  can  do. 

"The  Gaelic  American  is  firing  a  very  distant 
and  random  gun  now  though  it  has  headed  an 
article  'Playboy  as  dead  as  a  nail  in  a  door.'  I 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       215 

have  just  been  reading  Masefield's  Everlasting 
Mercy.  How  fine  it  is,  as  fine  as  Nan,  but  leading 
to  Heaven  and  the  wholesomeness  of  earth  instead 
of  poison  pies! 

"Mrs.  -  -gave  a  tea  for  me  yesterday,  and 
people  seemed  enthusiastic  and  there  is  evidently 
a  great  deal  of  talk  about  us;  but  it  is  just  like 
London,  we  are  building  downwards  from  the 
intellectuals.  Image  went  so  well  last  night  I  was 
glad  I  had  put  it  on.  Quinn  was  delighted  with 
the  scene  and  grouping.  He  thought  each  scene 
like  an  Augustus  John  drawing.  ...  I  believe 
the  critics  are  bewildered  because  of  so  much  new 
work.  Priests  keep  dropping  in  and  seem  to  enjoy 
the  plays,  and  O'S.  told  me  last  night  all  the 
young  men  are  either  coming  to  see  us  or  if  they 
have  no  money,  are  reading  our  plays  at  the 
library  and  getting  up  debates  concerning  them. 

"A  lady  at  Philadelphia  said  to  another,  'What 
did  you  really  think  of  Lady  Gregory's  play,  The 
"  Cowboy"  of  the  Western  World!1 

"Many  happy  New  Years  to  you!" 

"December  29th.  I  am  too  tired  to  write  a 
letter.  This  is  just  to  say  all  is  going  well,  big 
houses  on  these  last  nights.  Kathleen  and  The 


216  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Playboy  both  go  extremely  well.  We  have  got 
the  audience,  and  I  believe,  and  everyone  says, 
we  could  now  run  on  for  weeks,  but  the  theatre 
is  let  to  someone  else.  It  is  just  as  well  leaving 
at  the  top  of  the  wave.  Next  week  six  towns, 
then  Philadelphia. 

"  January  2d.  I  had  a  talk  with  Tyler.  He  was 
nice,  and  they  want  us  to  confirm  the  contract 
for  next  year.  Talking  of  the  opposition  he  said, 
'The  Irish  seem  to  be  always  afraid  of  things.' 
.  .  .  Last  week  was  a  real  triumph." 

"Philadelphia,  January  9,  1912.  I  am  staying 
here  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jayne,  in  a  beautiful  house, 
with  great  kindness  from  my  host  and  hostess. 
We  opened  very  well  last  night.  We  had  a  very 
appreciative  audience.  Mr.  and  Mrs. after- 
wards gave  a  supper  for  me  and  presented  me 
with  an  immense  basket  of  roses. 

"We  dined  on  Sunday  night  with  Dr.  Furness, 
the  old  Shakesperean  scholar.  We  went  by  rail 
and  had  to  walk  a  little  way  to  his  house.  It  was 
four  degrees  above  zero  but  so  still  it  did  n't  seem 
cold.  There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  snow,  and 
the  streets  are  very  slippery.  It  is  impossible 
to  walk  at  all  without  goloshes. 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       217 

"Mr.  Jayne  went  after  dinner  to  a  meeting  of  a 
philosophical  society  founded  by  Franklin.  He 
brought  back  philosophers  and  learned  men  of  all 
sorts.  We  talked  on  astronomy.  I  told  them  I 
had  once  walked  down  the  tube  of  Lord  Rosse's  big 
telescope.  Mr.  Jayne  told  of  Herschel  having  his 
telescope  brought  to  him  when  he  was  old  that  he 
might  look  at  Orion  and  remember  it  as  his  last 
view  of  the  heavens. 

"The  Jaynes  and  some  of  the  philosophers  went 
on  to  a  ball  at  the  Assembly  Rooms,  and  I  was 
invited.  It  gave  me  a  sense  of  Philadelphia 
being  a  community  of  its  own — very  entertaining. 

"A  Rev.  John  -  -  called  on  me  yesterday, 
sending  in  a  message  that  I  used  to  teach  him  his 
catechism  at  Killinane  Church.  I  had  forgotten, 
but  remembered  him  as  a  little  Protestant  boy. 
Something  made  me  ask  what  church  he  belonged 
to.  '  Catholic. '  I  said :  '  My  catechism  did  n't 
do  much  good  then?'  'Yes,'  he  said,  'I  was 
an  Anglican  clergyman  for  a  great  many  years.' 
'Why  did  you  change?'  'Because  of  authority. 
I  wanted  authority,  and  I  cannot  give  up  the 
belief  in  the  divinity  of  our  dear  Lord. '  '  But  we 
believe  that. '  '  No,  it 's  being  given  up  little 


2i 8  Our  Irish  Theatre 

by  little,  and  the  bishops  seemed  uncertain.  I 
wanted  authority. ' 

"When  we  parted  we  talked  about  Roxborough 
thirty-eight  years  ago.  I  said,  'We  must  say  a 
little  prayer  now  and  again  for  each  other. '  He 
said,  'Will  you  please  say  a  great  many  for  me.' 

"By  orders  from  New  York  two  secret  service 
men  were  sent  to  see  me  safely  home  from  the 
theatre,  quite  unnecessary  for  Mr.  Jayne,  who 
is  a  leading  lawyer,  was  sufficient  escort." 

"January  i6th.  We  had  a  little  trouble  last 
night,  the  first  of  The  Playboy.  The  first  act 
had  n't  gone  far  when  a  man  got  up  and  protested 
loudly  and  would  n't  stop.  Others  shouted  to 
him  to  go  out  or  keep  quiet,  and  called  out  '  New 
York  Irish,'  but  it  was  a  good  while  before  the 
police  could  be  stirred  up  to  remove  him.  By 
that  time  another  man  in  the  stalls  was  calling 
out  '  This  is  an  insult. '  The  men  near  were  call- 
ing to  him  to  clear  out,  but  they  did  n't  help  to 
evict  him.  It  was  Robinson  who  came  at  last 
and  led  him  out  like  a  lamb,  but  I  believe  he  made 
some  disturbance  in  the  hall.  By  this  time  others 
had  started  a  demonstration  in  the  balcony  and 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  noise,  so  that  for  about 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       219 

ten  minutes  the  play  could  n't  be  heard.  I  went 
round,  but  did  n't  make  the  actors  repeat  it,  for 
I  thought  the  audience  ought  to  be  made  to  suffer 
for  not  being  more  helpful.  About  twenty-five 
men  were  ejected  or  walked  out,  but  all  were 
given  back  their  money  at  the  box  office,  and  I  am 
sure  will  think  it  a  sacred  duty  to  spend  it  in  the 
same  way  again.  Two  were  arrested  for  assault. 
Nothing  was  thrown  but  a  slice  of  currant  cake, 
which  hit  Sinclair,  and  two  or  three  eggs,  which 
missed  him — he  says  they  were  fresh  ones.  I 
lectured  at  the  University  this  afternoon;  some  of 
the  students  had  come  and  invited  me.  A  very 
fine  attendance,  many  of  the  audience  stand- 
ing. I  spoke  only  half  an  hour,  but  made  quite 
a  new  little  lecture  and  it  held  them.  I  gave  eight 
tickets  to  be  given  to  athletes  among  the  Penn- 
sylvania students  as  A.  D.  C.'s  for  me  to-night. 
They  would  have  been  very  useful  putting  out 
offenders  and  taking  messages  to  the  stage.  I 
rehearsed  this  morning,  and  then  lectured  and 
went  to  a  '  College  Club '  tea — and  I  am  tired  and 
won't  write  more." 

"January  I7th.     The  riot  last  night  was  not 
so  serious  as  I  had  expected.     The  agitators  had 


22O  Our  Irish  Theatre 

been  so  gently  dealt  with  the  first  night  and  had 
had  their  money  returned,  one  felt  sure  they  would 
try  again,  and  when  I  got  to  the  theatre,  one  of 
the  officials  told  me  he  had  been  watching  the 
box  office  during  the  day,  and  had  seen  '  murderers ' 
taking  four  or  five  seats  together.  The  auditorium 
was  very  full,  and  at  the  back,  where  I  sat,  there 
were  a  great  many  suspicious-looking  characters. 
One  of  them  began  to  cough  loudly  during  Kath- 
leen ni  Houlihan  when  Miss  Allgood  was  singing 
the  first  little  song,  and  to  mutter,  so  that  people 
near  told  him  he  was  not  the  only  person  in  the 
theatre.  Others  joined  in  coughing,  bnt  I  sent  a 
message  round  to  have  the  lights  put  up,  and  the 
moment  they  were  turned  on,  the  coughs  stopped. 
I  pointed  out  this  man,  and  was  amused  to  see 
him  sit  through  the  play  looking  sullen  but  silent 
except  for  an  occasional  mutter  or  cough,  which 
was  stopped  at  once,  for  a  policeman  in  plain 
clothes  had  been  put  on  each  side  of  him.  Near 
the  end,  where  all  on  the  stage  rush  out  after 
Christy  when  he  is  going  to  'kill  his  father  the 
second  time,'  he  could  not  resist  laughing,  and 
then  he  walked  out  discomfited. 

"There  was  a  man  behind  me  who   coughed 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       221 

loudly  at  intervals  all  through  and  sounded  as 
if  making  ready  to  spit,  so  that  it  took  all  my 
courage  not  to  move.  In  the  third  act,  when 
Christy  boasts  of  having  'cleft  his  father  to  the 
breeches  belt,'  he  called  out  'Shame,  shame!' 
several  times  and  walked  out.  However,  whether 
he  repented  or  looked  through  the  glass  screen 
at  back  of  the  stalls  and  saw  the  father  come  to 
life  again,  I  don't  know,  but  he  returned  and 
stayed  to  the  end. 

"The  first  man  who  made  a  noise  was  the  most 
difficult  to  deal  with.  He  crooked  his  legs  round 
the  legs  of  his  chair,  and  it  took  four  men  to  take 
him  out.  One,  with  a  large  roll  of  paper  in  his 
hand,  stood  up  and  called  out  that  he  represented 
the  County  Down.  There  were  fifteen  evicted 
altogether,  all  from  the  stalls,  and  some  others 
walked  out  shouting  protests. 

"The  police  were  more  energetic  last  night  and 
did  their  work  very  well  and  with  joy,  as  Irish 
policemen  would.  The  inspector  too  was  there 
and  seemed  very  determined.  Also,  I  had  my 
eight  young  athletes  from  the  University  at  hand, 
ready  and  willing  to  give  aid.  The  play  was  not 
interrupted  for  more  than  a  minute  or  two  at  a 


222  Our  Irish  Theatre 

time.  I  told  the  players  to  stop  speaking  when- 
ever there  was  a  row,  and  to  resume  when  it  was 
over,  so  nothing  was  really  lost.  A  good  half  of 
the  protesters  last  night  stayed  till  the  end  of  the 
play.  I  think  they  were  waiting  for  the  bad  bits 
to  begin,  so  they  saw  it  at  all  events.  The 
papers  say  snuff  was  thrown,  but  I  think  not.  I 
think  it  was  premeditated  coughing,  but  the 
throats  did  n't  hold  out  very  long.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  were  a  lot  of  rough-looking  Irishmen 
near  me,  three  together  on  my  bench, who  did  not 
take  any  part  in  the  disturbance,  and  seemed  to 
enjoy  the  play.  I  am  sure,  therefore,  that  there 
will  be  two  parties.  ...  I  am  having  my  Uni- 
versity boys  again  to-night.  Flynn  had  to  leave 
in  the  middle  of  the  evening  and  Robinson  took 
Mrs.  Flynn  to  the  opera,  so  we  were  a  little  short- 
handed,  but  got  on  all  right.  John  Quinn  is 
coming  from  New  York  and  will  stay  the  night, 
so  I  shall  be  quite  easy." 

"January  I7th.  At  two  o'clock  I  was  just 
finishing  lunch  alone,  Mrs.  Jayne  lunching  out 
and  Mr.  Jayne  being  in  bed  with  a  cold,  when  I 
was  rung  up  by  Mr.  Bradford,  our  manager  at  the 
Adelphi,  to  say  that  he  had  warning  from  Lieblers 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       223 

that  we  might  have  to  change  the  bill  to-night 
and  take  off  The  Playboy.  I  said  that  could  not 
be  done,  but  he  said  it  might  be  necessary.  There 
is  some  legal  point,  and  Mr.  Bradford  thought 
that  we  might  all  be  arrested  if  we  went  on. 
I  said  I  would  rather  be  arrested  than  withdraw 
the  play  and  could  answer  for  the  players  feeling 
the  same.  He  said  there  was  also  danger  that 
Shubert,  to  whom  the  theatre  belongs,  might 
close  it.  I  said  that  would  be  bad  but  not  so  bad 
as  withdrawing  The  Playboy,  for  it  would  be 
Shubert's  doing  not  ours,  though  that  might  not 
be  much  help  in  the  public  view.  I  was  anxious, 
and  I  told  Bradford  not  to  consent  to  anything 
without  consulting  me.  Then  I  called  up  John 
Quinn  at  New  York,  got  him  at  his  office,  and 
asked  him  to  see  the  Lieblers,  and  said  that 
I  need  not  tell  him  I  would  sooner  go  to  my 
death  than  give  in.  He  said  he  would  see  them 
at  once,  and  that  he  would  be  here  this  evening, 
as  he  had  intended.  At  4  o'clock  I  heard  again 
from  Bradford.  He  said  it  had  been  decided  to 
go  on,  and  that  a  bail  bond  had  been  prepared. 
He  asked  if  there  was  anyone  to  represent  me  in 
case  of  my  arrest.  I  said  I  would  wait  to  consult 


224  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Quinn.  It  is  such  a  mercy  he  is  coming.  My 
only  fear  is  lest  they  should  get  out  an  injunction 
to  stop  the  matin6e  to-morrow;  even  that  would 
be  claimed  as  a  victory.  They  had  told  me  at 
the  theatre  this  morning  there  would  probably  be 
trouble  to-night.  The  men  arrested  were  let  out, 
had  their  money  returned,  and  were  escorted 
through  the  streets  by  an  admiring  crowd.  How- 
ever, I  should  like  to  avoid  arrest,  because  of  the 
publicity;  one  would  feel  like  a  suffragette." 

"Thursday,  i8th.  When  Quinn  arrived,  we 
went  straight  to  the  theatre — it  was  then  7:15 — 
and  found  the  whole  cast  had  already  been  techni- 
cally arrested!  The  tactics  of  the  enemy  had 
been  to  arrest  them  in  the  theatre  at  8  o'clock  and 
so  make  a  performance  impossible.  But  the 
theatre  lawyer  had  managed  to  circumvent  them, 
and  the  Chief  of  Police,  now  our  warm  friend, 
had  said  he  would  not  only  refuse  to  let  his 
men  arrest  the  actors,  but  he  would  have  any- 
one arrested  who  came  on  the  stage  to  do  so. 
In  the  end  the  warrants  of  arrest  were  issued  and 
the  manager  of  the  theatre  signed  bail  bonds  for 
the  appearance  of  the  Company  on  Friday  morn- 
ing. The  warrants  are  founded  on  a  bill  passed 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       225 

last  year  in  the  municipality  before  S.  Bernhardt's 
visit,  forbidding  'immoral  or  indecent  plays.' 
Our  accuser  is  a  liquor  dealer.  I  should  have  been 
completely  bewildered  by  the  whole  thing,  but 
Quinn  seemed  to  unravel  it.  We  had  a  consulta- 
tion with  the  theatre  lawyer,  and  Mr.  Jayne's 
partners,  Mr.  Biddle  and  Mr.  Yocum,  to  whom 
he  had  sent  me.  The  question  seems  to  be 
whether  it  is  best  to  have  the  hearing  put  off  and 
brought  before  a  judge,  or  whether  to  have  it 
settled  straight  off  to-morrow.  The  danger  is 
that  our  case  may  come  up  for  trial  after  some 
weeks,  bringing  us  back  here,  making  it  possible 
for  the  enemy  to  boast  that  we  were  under  bail. 
Quinn  is  this  morning  seeing  all  the  lawyers  again, 
and  some  decision  as  to  our  course  will  be  come  to. 

"The  Commissioner  of  Public  Safety  attended 
the  play  last  night,  and  said  the  attack  on  it  must 
be  a  joke.  ...  I  have  been  interrupted  in  this 
by  the  correspondent  of  the  Telegraph  coming  to 
ask  if  it  is  true,  as  stated  by  the  Irish  Societies, 
that  I  am  an  envoy  of  the  English  Government. 
I  referred  him  to  Mr.  Bryce,  who,  I  suppose, 
would  be  my  paymaster!" 

"Saturday,   20th.     I   have  been   too  anxious 

15 


226  Our  Irish  Theatre 

and  hard  worked  to  write  since  Thursday.  That 
was  the  last  performance  of  The  Playboy,  and  there 
was  an  immense  audience.  I  could  not  get  a 
seat.  Even  the  little  boxes  at  the  top — it  is  a 
very  high  theatre  with  eight  boxes  at  each  side — 
were  all  taken.  I  had  made  appointments  with 
reporters  and  others,  and  had  to  get  a  high  stool 
from  the  office  put  in  the  passage  and  sit  there 
or  at  the  back  of  the  stage.  It  was  the  record 
matinee  of  the  Adelphi.  There  was  tremendous 
enthusiasm  and  not  a  sign  of  any  disturbance. 
Of  course,  we  had  a  good  many  policemen  in  the 
house,  to  the  great  regret  of  the  management, 
who  had  to  turn  so  much  good  money  away.  So 
that  was  quite  a  cheerful  day.  Someone  in  the 
audience  was  heard  declaring  that  the  players  are 
not  Irish,  but  all  Jews.  I  had  an  anonymous 
letter  from  some  one,  who  accuses  me  of  the  usual 
crimes  and  winds  up:  'The  writer  has  never  saw 
the  play,  but  has  read  all  about  you  and  it'! 
That  is  the  way  with  most  of  the  letter  writers,  I 
think. 

"Yesterday,  Friday  morning,  we  attended  the 
Magistrate's  Court  at  nine  o'clock.  We  had  to 
wait  nearly  an  hour  in  a  tiny,  stuffy  room.  When 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       227 

the  hearing  began,  I  was  given  a  chair  behind  the 
Magistrate,  but  the  others  had  either  to  sit  at  the 
back  of  the  inner  room,  where  they  could  not  see 
or  hear,  or  stand  as  they  did,  for  over  an  hour. 
The  liquor-seller,  our  prosecutor,  was  the  first 
witness.  He  had  stayed  only  till  Shawneen's 
'coat  of  a  Christian  man'  was  left  in  Michael 
James's  hands.  He  made  a  disturbance  then  and 
was  turned  out,  but  was  able  to  find  as  much 
indecency  even  in  that  conversation  as  would 
demoralise  a  monastery.  His  brother,  a  priest, 
had  stayed  all  through,  and  found  we  had  com- 
mitted every  sin  mentioned  in  the  Act.  Another 
witness  swore  that  sentences  were  used  in  the  play 
and  that  he  had  heard  them,  though  they  are  not 
either  in  book  nor  play.  Several  witnesses  were 
examined  or  asked  to  speak,  all  giving  the  same 
story,  '  or  if  it  was  not  the  same  story,  anyway  it 
was  no  less  than  the  first  story. ' 

"Our  actors  were  furious.  Kerrigan  tried  hard 
to  keep  from  breaking  out  and  risking  all  when  the 
priest  was  attacking  his  (that  is  Shawn  Keogh's) 
character  and  intentions.  At  last  he  called  out, 
'My  God!'  and  the  Magistrate  said,  'If  that 
man  interrupts  the  Court  again,  turn  him  out,' 


228  Our  Irish  Theatre 

forgetting  that  he  was  speaking  of  a  prisoner  at 
the  bar!  Indeed,  as  the  prosecutors  grew  ex- 
cited, the  trial  of  the  Irish  Players  seemed  to  be 
forgotten,  and  it  became  the  trial  of  Christy 
Mahon  for  the  attempted  murder  of  his  father. 
Mr.  Gray  demanded  that  the  actors  should 
be  'held  for  Court,'  but  Quinn,  knowing  what 
would  happen,  had  arranged  for  this,  and  our 
lawyers  '  sued  out  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus '  (I  hope 
this  is  the  right  expression)  and  had  arranged 
with  Judge  Carr  to  try  the  case  in  the  afternoon. 
Mr.  Gray  wanted  then  to  have  it  tried  at  once. 
He  said  he  had  to  leave  town  in  the  afternoon, 
but  in  the  end  the  Judge  said  he  could  not  arrange 
for  the  trial  before  three  o'clock.  This  gave  me 
time  to  telephone  to  John  Quinn,  who  had  thought 
the  trial  was  not  to  be  till  next  morning,  and  was 
attending  cases  of  his  own  in  New  York.  He 
answered  that  he  would  come  if  he  possibly 
could.  Then  there  was  a  message  that  he 
had  missed  the  train  by  one  minute,  but  had 
caught  another,  ten  minutes  later.  At  three 
o'clock  we  went  to  the  Court,  a  large  one  this  time. 
The  Judge  did  n't  know  anything  about  the  play, 
and  had  to  be  told  the  whole  story  as  it  went  on, 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       229 

just  like  old  Wall  in  Dublin  at  our  first  riot,  so 
before  the  case  had  gone  far  audience  and  officials 
were  in  a  broad  grin.  The  liquor-dealer  got  a 
different  hearing  this  time,  was  asked  some  per- 
tinent questions  instead  of  being  simply  encour- 
aged, as  he  was  by  the  Magistrate. 

"The  dramatic  event  was  the  arrival  of  Quinn 
while  a  witness  was  being  examined.  We  had 
got  leave  from  the  Judge  for  him  to  cross- 
examine,  and  the  witness  had  to  confess  that  the 
people  of  Ireland  do  use  the  name  of  God  at  other 
times  than  in  blessing  or  thanking  those  who  have 
been  kind  to  them,  and  in  gratitude  or  prayer,  as 
he  had  at  first  asserted  upon  oath.  Also  when  he 
based  his  attack  on  indecency  by  quoting  the 
'poacher's  love,'  spoken  of  by  Christy,  he  was 
made  to  admit  that,  a  few  sentences  earlier,  mar- 
riage had  been  spoken  of,  'in  a  fortnight's  time 
when  the  banns  will  be  called.'  Whether  this 
made  it  more  or  less  moral,  he  was  not  asked  to 
say.  He  called  the  play  '  libidinous. ' 

"J.  Q.  asked  one  witness  if  anything  immoral 
had  happened  on  the  stage,  and  he  answered 
'Not  while  the  curtain  was  up!'  I  think  it  was 
the  same  witness  who  said,  '  A  theatre  is  no  place 


230  Our  Irish  Theatre 

for  a  sense  of  humour. '  The  players  beamed  and 
the  audience  enjoyed  themselves,  and  then  when 
the  Director  of  Public  Safety  was  called  and  said 
he  and  his  wife  had  enjoyed  the  play  very  much 
and  had  seen  nothing  to  shock  anybody,  the  enemy 
had  received,  as  Quinn  said, '  a  knock-out  blow. ' 
He  made  a  very  fine  speech  then.  There  is  just 
a  little  bit  of  it  in  the  North  American,  but  Mr. 
Gray  made  objections  to  its  being  reported,  but 
anyhow,  it  turned  the  tables  completely  on  the 
enemy.  It  was  a  little  disappointment  that  the 
Judge  did  not  give  his  verdict  there  and  then, 
that  we  might  have  cabled  home. 

"A  lot  of  people  have  been  expressing  sympathy. 
A  young  man  from  the  University,  who  had  been 
bringing  a  bodyguard  for  me  on  the  riot  nights, 
has  just  been  to  say  good-bye,  and  told  me  the 
students  are  going  to  hold  an  indignation  meeting. 
The  Drama  League,  six  hundred  strong,  has  so 
far  done  or  said  nothing,  though  it  is  supposed  to 
have  sent  out  a  bulletin  endorsing  the  favour- 
able opinion  of  Boston  upon  our  plays,  a  week 
after  we  came  here,  not  having  had  time  to  form 
an  opinion  of  its  own.  Can  you  imagine  their 
allowing  such  a  thing  to  happen  here  as  the  arrest 


"The  Playboy"  in  America      231 

of  a  company  of  artists  engaged  in  producing  a 
masterpiece,  and  at  such  hands !  The  Administra- 
tion has  been  re-formed  of  late  and  is  certainly  on 
the  mend,  but  there  is  plenty  more  to  be  done, 
although  the  city  has  an  innocent  look,  as  if  it 
had  gone  astray  in  the  fields,  and  its  streets 
are  named  after  trees.  The  Company  are  in 
a  state  of  fury,  but  they  adore  John  Quinn,  and 
his  name  will  pass  into  folk-lore  like  those  stories 
of  O'Connell  suddenly  appearing  at  trials.  He 
spoke  splendidly,  with  fire  and  full  knowledge. 
You  will  see  what  he  said  about  the  witnesses  in 
the  North  American  and  even  Robinson  says  he 
'  came  like  an  angel. ' 

"Sunday,  2ist.  Yesterday  was  a  little  de- 
pressing, for  the  Judge  had  not  yet  given  out  his 
decision;  so  we  are  still  under  bail  and  the  imputa- 
tions of  indecency,  etc.  The  Philadelphians  say  it 
is  because  the  Act  is  such  a  new  one,  it  requires 
a  great  deal  of  consideration. 

"A  reporter  came  yesterday  to  ask  whether  I 
considered  The  Playboy  immoral.  I  said  my 
taking  it  about  was  answer  enough,  but  that  if  he 
wished  to  give  interesting  news,  he  would  go  to 
the  twenty-six  witnesses  produced  against  us  (we 


232  Our  Irish  Theatre 

were  not  allowed  to  produce  one  on  our  side)  and 
try  tc  get  at  their  opinions,  and  on  what  they  were 
founded.  He  answered  that  he  had  already  been 
to  ten  of  them  that  morning,  that  they  all  answered 
in  the  same  words,  not  two  words  of  difference — 
that  their  opinion  was  founded  on  the  boy  and 
the  girl  being  left  alone  in  the  house  for  the  night. 
They  can  hardly  have  heard  Quinn  making  the 
clerical  witness  withdraw  his  statement  that 
immorality  was  implied  by  their  being  left  together. 
I  advised  him  also  to  look  at  the  signed  articles 
on  the  play  in  so  many  English  and  American 
magazines,  and  to  remember  that  even  here  the 
plays  have  been  taught  in  the  dramatic  classes  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  that  the  President 
of  Bryn  Mawr  had  invited  the  players  to  the 
College  for  the  day,  and  had  sent  a  large  party  of 
students  to  the  last  matinee  of  The  Playboy,  leave 
being  asked  to  introduce  them  to  me.  I  told  him 
he  might  print  all  this  opposite  the  witnesses' 
opinions. 

"Yesterday's  matinde,  Rising  of  the  Moon, 
Well  of  the  Saints,  and  Workhouse  Ward,  was 
again  so  crowded  that  I  could  not  get  a  place 
and  went  and  sat  in  the  side-wings,  where  a  cine- 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       233 

matograph  man  came  to  ask  if  I  would  allow  The 
Playboy  to  be  used 'for  a  moving-picture  exhibition, 
as  it  would  be  '  such  a  good  advertisement  for  us ! ' 
Last  night  also  there  was  a  very  good  audience. 
We  took  just  one  dollar  short  of  eight  thousand 
dollars  in  the  week.  Such  a  pity  the  dollars  were 
returned  to  the  disturbers  or  we  should  have 
gone  above  it." 

"I  was  advised  to  go  to  a  certain  newspaper 
office  to  get  evidence  that  was  considered  neces- 
sary as  to  the  standing  of  the  magistrate  who  had 
issued  the  writ  and  before  whom  we  had  been 
brought  (we  had  been  advised  to  take  an  action 
for  malicious  arrest).  The  editor  was  generous 
enough  to  let  me  have  from  the  files,  classified  in 
the  newspaper  office  as  '  Obituary  Notices,'  ready 
for  use  at  the  proper  time  an  envelope  containing 
reports  of  some  curious  incidents  in  the  record  of 
the  magistrate  in  question.  The  editor  lamented 
his  troubles  of  the  evening  before  when  he  had 
gone  for  supper  to  the  Bellevue  where  I  had  met 
him.  He  had  taken  to  the  restaurant  a  young 
niece,  who  wanted  something  delicate  for  supper, 
whereas  the  editor  himself  wanted  two  soft-toiled 
eggs  with  rice  and  cream.  These  simple  dishes, 


234  Our  Irish  Theatre 

however,  could  not  be  had  at  the  fashionable 
Bellevue  and  he  was  able  but  to  pick  at  a  little  of 
the  delicate  food.  After  he  had  taken  the  niece 
home,  he  made  off  to  his  own  little  homely  res- 
taurant, where  he  secured  his  rice  and  eggs.  This, 
and  an  interview  I  had  seen  with  Yeats,  who  sup- 
poses that  our  arrest  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
Philadelphia  is  a  Puritan  town,  brought  back  the 
rural  atmosphere." 

Our  friends  at  home  were  naturally  amazed, 
especially  in  London  where  the  posters  of  the 
newspapers  had  in  large  letters,  "ARREST  OF  THE 
IRISH  PLAYERS.  "  Mr.  Yeats  wrote  from  Dublin, 
January  2 1st:  "I  need  not  tell  you  how  startled  I 
was  when  a  reporter  came  to  me  on  Thursday 
evening  and  asked  me  whether  I  had  anything  to 
say  regarding  the  arrest  of  the  Abbey  Players. 
While  I  was  talking  to  him  and  telling  him  I  did  n't 
really  know  anything  about  it  (he  was  as  ignorant 
of  your  crime  as  I  was),  a  second  reporter  came  in, 
equally  urgent  and  ignorant.  Then  a  wire  came 
from  the  London  correspondent  of  the  New  York 
Sun,  asking  for  an  opinion  on  the  arrest  of  Abbey 
Players.  We  were  speculating  as  to  what  it  could 


"The  Playboy"  in  America      235 

mean,  and  I  was  surmising  it  was  Blanco,  when  a 
telegram  came  from  the  Manchester  Guardian, 
saying  it  was  The  Playboy  and  asking  me  to  see 
their  reporter.  Then  a  young  man  arrived  with 
a  telegram,  and  I  thought  he  was  the  reporter 
and  became  very  eloquent.  He  was  sympathetic 
and  interested,  and  when  I  had  finished,  explained 
that  he  was  only  the  post-office  messenger.  Then 
another  reporter  turned  up  and  after  that  the 
Manchester  Guardian  man.  You  will  have  had 
the  papers  before  this.  I  think  for  the  moment  it 
has  made  us  rather  popular  here  in  Dublin,  for  no 
matter  how  much  evil  people  wish  for  the  Direc- 
tors, they  feel  amiable  towards  the  players.  If  only 
Miss  Allgood  could  get  a  fortnight,  I  think  the 
pit  would  love  even  The  Playboy.  However,  I 
imagine  that  after  a  few  days  of  the  correspondence 
columns,  we  shall  discover  our  enemies  again. 

"We  have  done  very  well  this  week  with  the 
school.  I  am  rather  anxious  that  the  school,  or 
No.  2  Company,  as  it  will  be,  should  have  in  its 
repertory  some  of  our  most  popular  pieces.  .  .  . 
The  great  thing  achieved  is  that  if  Philadelphia 
had  permanently  imprisoned  the  whole  Company, 
our  new  Company  would  in  twelve  months  have 


236  Our  Irish  Theatre 

taken  their  place  here  in  Dublin.  We  have  now 
a  fine  general  effect,  though  we  have  no  big 
personalities." 

"Philadelphia,  Monday.  I  forget  what  I  have 
written,  and  I  don't  know  if  I  have  explained  that 
we  were  allowed  no  witnesses,  either  at  the  Magis- 
trate's or  the  Judge's  Court,  and  with  our  hastily 
instructed  lawyers  we  should  not  have  been  able 
to  make  even  any  defence  through  them  but  for 
the  miraculous  appearance  of  John  Quinn.  And 
this  is  the  fifth  day  we  have  been  under  bail  on 
charge  of  indecency,  and  its  like." 

"January  22d,  Hotel  Algonquin,  New  York. 
Contrary  to  my  directions  Liebler's  man  had  put 
on  The  Playboy  for  Pittsburg.  It  was  asked  for 
by  some  ladies  who  are  taking  the  whole  house 
for  a  charity  performance.  Now  they  have 
written  to  ask  for  another  bill  instead,  Hyacinth, 
Riders,  Workhouse;  and  the  papers  say  that  The 
Playboy  has  been  taken  off  on  religious  grounds." 

"Richmond,  Indiana,  January  24th.  The  jour- 
ney to  Pittsburg  is  a  quite  lovely  journey,  like 
Switzerland  but  less  monotonous;  the  sunshine 
and  snow  exhilarating.  The  plays  had  begun 


"The  Playboy"  in  America      237 

when  I  arrived.  There  was  a  very  good  audience 
and  Hyacinth  and  Workhouse  Ward  made  them 
laugh  a  great  deal.  Carnegie  Hall  is  all  gilding 
and  marbles,  and  a  gilded  organ  towers  above  the 
butcher's  shop  in  Hyacinth.  I  had  to  make  a 
little  speech  and  was  able  to  tell  of  the  telegram 
from  Philadelphia,  saying  the  Judge  had  dismissed 
the  case.  We  came  on  here  through  the  night. 

"An  interviewer  who  came  this  morning  has 
sent  me  an  interesting  book  on  Indiana  book 
plates,  and  an  old  lady  brought  me  an  Irish  Bible, 
and  the  jeweller  who  packed  my  watch  would  take 
nothing,  and  Miss  Allgood  has  sent  me  a  box  of 
roses.  So  the  stars  must  be  in  a  good  mood.  I 
think  we  ought  to  start  with  The  Playboy  in 
Chicago  and  get  that  over.  It  would  show  we 
are  not  damped  by  Philadelphia." 

We  went  on  that  night  to  Indianapolis.  The 
Playboy  had  been  specially  asked  for  in  Indian- 
apolis. Protests  against  its  production  were  made 
to  the  manager  of  the  theatre  by  the  Ancient  Order 
of  Hibernians  and  others,  but  the  manager  said 
he  was  powerless.  They  also  called  upon  Super- 
intendent of  Police  Hyland,  who  said:  "I  will 
have  plenty  of  men  at  the  theatre  to  quell  a  dis- 


238  Our  Irish  Theatre 

turbance.  I  don't  believe,  however,  that  there 
will  be  any  trouble.  If  there  are  persons  who  do 
not  like  the  show,  they  can  stay  away.  But 
there  is  one  thing  certain ;  if  they  do  not  stay  away 
and  come  to  the  show  to  make  trouble,  they  will 
find  plenty  of  it  on  hand." 

The  Mayor  was  also  appealed  to,  but  he  did  not 
see  his  way  to  stop  the  play.  The  Irish  Societies 
then  decided  to  stay  away,  and  though  the  theatre 
was  packed,  the  play  went  through  in  perfect 
peace. 

"  Chicago,  Hotel  La  Salle,  January  26th.  Tyler 
wired  me  to  come  on  here,  so  I  left  the  Company 
at  Indianapolis  this  morning  and  came  on.  We 
don't  begin  playing  here  till  the  5th.  No  theatre 
is  ready.  Gaston  Mayer  was  very  urgent  we 
should  stay  another  week  on  account  of  getting 
here  so  late.  I  told  the  Company  of  this  and 
they  decided  to  stay.  We  shall  therefore  finish 
here  March  2d  and  sail  on  the  6th.  We  had  no 
trouble  at  Indianapolis  last  night.  The  police 
authorities  were  very  firm  and  the  threats  col- 
lapsed. I  wish  Philadelphia  had  been  as  firm. 
They  are  all  afraid  of  the  politicians.  .  .  . 

"I  was  sorry  to  leave  the  Company.     I  feel 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       239 

like  Wilhelm  Meister  going  through  ever-fresh 
adventures  with  the  little  troop.  As  to  the  rows, 
I  don't  think  there  is  anything  you  (Yeats) 
could  have  done,  except  that  you  would  have 
done  things  yourself  while  others  have  done 
them  for  me.  The  Company  insist  on  giving  John 
Quinn  a  silver  cup,  in  gratitude  for  his  help.  I 
have  n't  seen  Flynn  for  a  fortnight.  He  is 
astray  among  the  one-night  towns  and  talked  to 
us  at  Indianapolis  through  the  telephone,  with 
a  bad  cold." 

"25th  or  26th.  I  see  by  the  papers  that  at  the 
La  Salle  Hotel,  where  I  am  staying,  a  meeting  of 
Irishmen  has  been  held  at  which  an  'Anti-Irish 
Players'  League'  was  formed,  beginning  with  a 
membership  of  three  hundred.  Such  a  pity  I 
could  n't  have  slipped  in  to  the  meeting!  A  peti- 
tion had  also  been  written  and  was  being  sent  out 
for  signature,  demanding  the  suppression  of  The 
Playboy.  This  petition  was  said  to  have  been  signed 
by  eight  thousand  persons,  and  twenty  thousand 
signatures  were  expected.  Meanwhile  the  Anti- 
Cruelty  Society  of  Chicago,  at  the  head  of  which 
are  various  benevolent  ladies,  had  asked  leave  to 
buy  up  the  whole  house  for  the  first  performance 


240  Our  Irish  Theatre 

of  The  Playboy  of  the  Western  World.  They 
meant  to  resell  these  seats  at  an  increased  price 
for  their  charity  and  believed  it  was  likely  to  draw 
the  largest  audience.  So  they  have  taken  the 
theatre  for  Tuesday,  February  6,  and  the  public 
performance  of  The  Playboy  will  take  place  the 
next  day." 

"January  29th.  My  typewriter  is  mended  at 
last,  and  I  am  getting  settled.  Last  night  one  of 
the  boy  interviewers — they  are  all  boys  here — 
came  in  from  one  of  the  papers.  He  showed  me 
two  statements  written  by  Liebler's  manager 
here,  one  colourless,  the  other  offering  a  reward  of 
five  thousand  dollars  to  anyone  who  could  prove 
the  management  had  bribed  rioters  for  the  first 
night,  as  has  been  stated  in  the  papers.  I  advised 
that  this  be  put  in,  as  people  really  seem  to  believe 
it  is  true.  This  young  man  had  been  to  see  many 
of  the  objectors.  They  said  Synge  was  a  '  degen- 
erate,' who  had  lived  abroad  to  collect  a  bad 
atmosphere,  which  he  put  round  Irish  characters 
afterwards.  A  nice  young  interviewer;  he  wants 
to  write  a  play  around  his  mother's  life,  to 
show  what  a  mother's  devotion  can  be.  Another 
of  them  is  twenty-five  and  is  going  to  be  married 


"The  Playboy"  in  America      241 

next  summer.  He  showed  me  his  fiancee's 
portrait,  and  another  went  and  hunted  for  a  Don 
Quixote  I  wanted,  to  distract  my  mind  from 
present-day  things. 

"This  morning  one  came  who  is  in  with  the 
Irish  Clubs  and  had  all  the  objections,  but  now 
seems  quite  friendly.  He  says  one  of  the  chief 
officers  of  the  'Anti-Irish  Players'  League'  is  a 
man  called  H.,  a  son  of  old  Mrs.  H.!  He  has 
hinted  that  my  sympathies  are  with  the  landlord 
side,  and  that  he  could  tell  tales  of  hard  treatment. 
The  interviewer  wanted  to  know  if  a  rehearsal 
could  be  held  for  the  Mayor  so  that  he  might 
judge  the  play,  but  I  said  the  first  night 
under  the  patronage  of  the  Anti-Cruelty  Society 
would  give  him  his  opportunity.  A  lady  inter- 
viewer then  came,  but  I  made  her  take  her  pencil 
and  write  down  what  I  did  say,  which  is  more  than 
the  boys  do.  I  tell  them  I  put  in  my  pig  and  it 
comes  out  sausage." 

"Tuesday,  January  3Oth.  I  am  so  tired! 
Last  night  I  dined  with  the  Hamills,  friends  of 
John  Quinn.  It  was  a  very  pleasant  dinner  and  we 
all  went  afterwards  to  see  The  Woman,  a  good  play 
in  its  realistic  way.  I  came  home  quite  cheery 

16 


242  Our  Irish  Theatre 

but  found  in  the  passage  one  of  my  young  inter- 
viewers, who  told  me  the  Town  Council  had 
unanimously  voted  against  The  Playboy  being 
put  on.  He  had  been  sent  to  ask  me  for  a  state- 
ment, but  advised  me  not  to  make  one,  and  there 
was  nothing  to  say.  I  was  going  to  bed  near 
midnight  when  another  interviewer  arrived,  and 
said  the  Mayor  had  acted  on  the  recommendation 
of  the  Council  and  suppressed  the  play.  He 
showed  me  an  article  which  was  to  appear  in  the 
morning  issue  of  his  paper  telling  this.  I  was 
very  sad  for  it  seemed  as  if  there  was  an  end  of  the 
fight.  The  hot  water-apparatus  in  my  room, 
which  is  always  out  of  order,  began  grunting  and 
groaning  between  one  and  two  when  I  was  asleep 
and  wakened  me;  so  I  got  no  more  sleep  till  late 
morning,  and  then  was  awaked  by  interviewers 
at  the  telephone.  They  even  knocked  at  my  door 
while  I  was  dressing. 

"When  I  went  down,  however,  I  found  that 
the  Mayor  had  not  ordered  the  play  off,  and  the 
article  in  the  paper  had  had  to  be  re-printed. 
Also  Flynn  arrived  and  was  a  help  with  the  army 
who  came  in,  entertaining  them  while  I  typed  out 
a  statement  about  the  adventures  of  The  Playboy 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       243 

so  far,  and  this  statement  I  gave  them.  Then  I 
'phoned  to  Mr.  Hamill,  who  is  a  lawyer  and  who 
had  said  last  night  he  would  help  me  in  any 
legal  difficulty.  He  came  at  once  and  was  splen- 
did. He  went  into  the  law  of  the  case,  and 
believes  that  if  the  Mayor  does  forbid  it,  we  can 
take  him  into  the  Federal  Court,  and  go  on  all 
right.  He  says  another  lawyer,  who  was  at 
dinner  last  night,  has  also  volunteered  to  serve. 
He  went  to  try  and  see  the  Mayor  but  missed 
him.  He  is,  however,  to  see  him  at  noon  to- 
morrow. He  came  back  at  five  for  another  talk, 
and  says  he  does  n't  think  the  Mayor  has  power 
to  stop  it.  He  has  seen  the  Corporation  lawyer. 

"I  was  engaged  to  lunch  with  a  nice  Mrs. 

at  one,  but  got  there  after  the  hour  and  had  to  be 
back  here  before  two,  and  it  was  an  absurd  thing : 
I  had  had  my  room  changed.  I  had  suffered  so 
much  from  the  unmanageable  hot  water  that  I 
threatened  the  manager  that  I  would  tell  the  inter- 
viewers about  it,  and  he  at  once  gave  me  another 
suite.  My  things  were  being  brought  up,  and  I 
could  n't  find  hat  or  coat,  therefore  had  to  go  just 
as  I  was.  However  the  lunch  was  very  pleasant 
and  good,  what  I  had  of  it.  ... 


244  Our  Irish  Theatre 

"I  came  back  to  find  a  Mr.  Field,  editor  of  one 
of  the  papers,  who  had  brought  'an  enemy,' 
who  announced  he  had  come  but  for  five  min- 
utes to  hear  my  views,  and  spent  at  least  ten 
in  giving  his  own.  Then  Liebler's  local  manager 
came  in.  He  also  thinks  we  shall  be  able  to  cir- 
cumvent the  Mayor.  He  believes,  however,  the 
Mayor  will  give  the  order  for  political  reasons, 
though  he  has  some  culture  and  would  not  like 
to  be  classed  with  the  Aldermen.  A  couple  of 
ladies  called.  One  comfort  of  being  attacked  is 
that  one  finds  friends  to  help.  .  .  . 

"I  have  nice  rooms  now  on  the  ninth  floor- 
there  are  twenty-two  floors  altogether — the  place 
riddled  with  telephones,  radiators,  etc.  I  was 
glad  to  hear  the  voice  of  a  fat  housemaid  from 
Mayo  a  while  ago. 

"It  is  a  strange  fate  that  sends  me  into  battle 
after  my  peaceful  life  for  so  many  years,  and 
especially  over  Playboy,  that  I  have  never  really 
loved,  but  one  has  to  carry  through  one's  job. 
One  of  the  accusations  has  been  that  there  are  no 
Irish  persons  connected  with  the  Company,  and 
my  answer  is  given  accurately  in  one  of  the  papers. 
'The  Players  are  all  Irish  by  birth.  They  had 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       245 

never  left  Ireland  until  they  came  to  England  on 
the  tours  made  by  us.  With  two  exceptions  all 
are  Roman  Catholics. 

'"I  believe  the  play  is  quite  honestly  considered 
by  some  of  my  countrymen  out  here  to  be  injurious 
to  Ireland  and  her  claim  for  self-government,  but 
I  know  that  such  an  assumption  is  wrong  and  that 
the  dignity  of  Ireland  has  been  very  much  increased 
by  the  work  of  the  Theatre,  of  which  the  genius 
of  Mr.  Synge  is  a  component  part.' " 

"February  1st.  Yesterday  morning  I  took  a 
holiday,  went  to  see  a  little  amateur  play  in  a 
private  house.  It  was  on  suffrage,  called  Every- 
woman,  very  short  and  rather  amusing.  It  was 
given  at  u  o'clock  and  afterwards  there  was 
an  'informal  lunch,'  rather  a  good  idea, — little 
tables,  not  set  out,  here  and  there.  There  were 
first  cups  of  delicious  soup,  then  vegetable  sand- 
wiches with  little  cases  of  hot  mince,  and  peas, 
just  a  plate  and  fork,  then  ices  and  black  coffee, 
and  bonbons.  It  was  much  pleasanter  than  sitting 
down  to  a  table;  one  could  move  about.  The 
luncheon  was  all  over  by  1 : 30,  and  then  a  Mrs. 
R—  -  took  me  for  a  drive  in  her  motor.  We 
drove  about  thirty  miles  about  the  park  and  town 


246  Our  Irish  Theatre 

and  along  the  lake  side,  but  never  really  away  from 
the  town,  which  is  immense.  The  lake  is  lovely, 
a  soft  turquoise  blue,  not  the  blue  of  the  sea,  and 
there  was  floating  ice  near  the  shore.  It  was 
luckily  a  bright  day,  the  first  we  have  had.  To- 
day there  is  snow  again  and  darkness. 

"When  I  came  home,  I  set  to  work  to  correct 
a  copy  of  The  Playboy  according  to  the  prompt  • 
copy  I  had  just  had  sent  on  by  the  Company,  in 
case  the  Mayor  wanted  it.  A  journalist  came  in 
who  wanted  to  know  about  the  cuts,  and  I  got 
him  to  help  me.  Then  Mr.  Hamill  came;  he 
does  n't  think  there  will  be  trouble.  Then  I  took 
up  a  lot  of  telephone  addresses  that  had  been 
left  for  me  to  call  up,  and  found  one  was  from 
'W.  Dillon.'  It  was  a  Mr.  Dillon  representing 
the  enemy,  who  had  been  brought  to  see  me  on 
Tuesday.  My  interview  with  him  had  appeared 
in  a  very  mangled  form  next  day  and  I  found  only 
then  that  he  was  a  brother  of  John  Dillon,  M.P., 
and  the  Corporation  lawyer.  I  called  him  up,  and 
he  answered  from  the  City  Hall,  and  said  he  was 
writing  a  report  on  the  legal  aspect  of  the  case  for  * 
the  Mayor,  and  wanted  to  know  if  I  was  sure 
certain  words  had  been  left  out  of  the  acting  ver- 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       247 

sion,  as  I  told  him  had  always  been  done.  I  said 
yes,  and  I  could  now  bring  him  the  prompt  copy. 
He  assented  and  I  went  round  to  the  City 
Hall.  Mr.  Dillon  was  sitting  in  his  office,  dic- 
tating to  a  shorthand  writer.  He  said,  'You 
may  listen  to  what  I  am  dictating,  but  you 
must  treat  it  as  confidential.'  I  said,  'I  will  go 
away  if  you  wish,'  but  he  said,  'No,  I  will  trust 
to  your  honour  as  a  lady. '  He  was  just  finishing 
his  statement,  as  printed  in  the  papers  this  morn- 
ing, denouncing  the  play  but  saying  that,  though 
in  his  opinion  it  might  lead  to  a  riot,  he  did  not 
think  the  Mayor  had  power  to  stop  it.  I  showed 
him  the  prompt  copy.  He  asked  if  we  could  not 
strike  out  still  more.  I  said  the  passages  we  had 
changed  or  left  out  had  been  changed  in  Mr. 
Synge's  lifetime  and  with  his  consent,  and  we  did 
not  feel  justified  in  meddling  any  more.  I  think 
he  expected  me  to  make  some  concession,  for  he 
said  then, '  I  think  you  would  do  much  better  to 
take  the  play  off  altogether.'  I  said  we  were 
bound  by  contract  to  Liebler  to  put  on  whatever 
plays  they  asked  for.  He  said,  'Then  it  is  not 
in  your  power  to  remove  it?'  I  answered,  'No/ 
and  that  ended  the  matter.  I  felt  sorry  for  the 


248  Our  Irish  Theatre 

moment,  for  it  would  have  been  gracious  to  make 
some  small  concession,  but  afterwards  I  thought 
of  Parnell.  .  .  .  We  may  bring  that  play  some 
other  time,  and  there  are  many  who  think  his 
betrayal  a  greater  slur  upon  Ireland  than  would 
be  even  the  real  killing  of  a  father. 

"  The  Examiner  announces  that  the  Mayor  won't 
stop  the  play.  He  has  said.  '  I  do  not  see  how  the 
performance  can  be  stopped.  I  have  read  part 
of  it  and  its  chief  characteristic  seems  to  be  stu- 
pidity rather  than  immorality.  I  should  think  it 
would  take  more  than  a  regiment  of  soldiers  to 
compel  an  audience  to  fill  the  Grand  Opera  House 
to  see  such  a  poor  production.  I  certainly  shall 
not  see  it. ' 

"I  hope  I  may  get  some  breathing  time.  The 
idea  of  a  day  spent  playing  with  little  Richard  seems 
an  impossible  heaven !  And  I  feel  a  little  lonely  at 
times.  It  is  a  mercy  this  will  be  the  last  fight.  I 
don't  think  it  is  over  yet.  ...  I  like  to  hear  of  the 
success  of  the  school.  It  will  be  a  great  enjoy- 
ment sitting  down  to  listen  to  a  verse  play  again 
if  I  survive  to  do  it!" 

"Feb.  3rd.  I  dined  with  the  McC s,  and 

went  on  to  the  Opera,  Tristan  und  Isolde,  which 


"The  Playboy"  in  America      249 

I   had   never   seen.     It  was  a  great  delight,  a 
change  from  worries.     I  like  the  people   here.  { 
They  are  more  merry  than  those  of  the  other  cities  ; 
somehow,  at  least  those  I  have  fallen  amongst. 
They  are  vital.     They  don't  want  to  die  till  they 
see  what  Chicago  is  going  to  do. 

"There  is  snow  on  the  ground  and  yesterday 
when  I  went  for  a  walk,  the  cold  frightened  me  at 
first, — such  pain  in  the  face,  but  I  went  on  and 
got  used  to  it.  The  thermometer  has  been  six 
below  zero." 

"Feb.  8th.  I  seem  to  have  been  busy  ever 
since.  The  first  night  of  The  Playboy  was  anx- 
ious. I  was  not  really  anxious  the  Anti-Cruelty 
night,  and  it  went  off  quite  peaceably,  but  I  was 
last  night,  the  open  one,  for,  as  I  quoted  from 
Image,  'There  are  always  contrary  people  in 
a  crowd.'  But  the  play  was  acted  in  entire 
peace.  I  nearly  fell  asleep!  It  seems  complete 
victory.  The  Corporation  had  to  rescind  their 
resolution  against  it,  and  I  suppose  the  objectors 
found  public  opinion  was  too  strong  to  permit  any 
protest  to  be  made.  It  is  a  great  mercy.  I  did 
not  know  how  great  the  strain  was  till  it  was  over. 

"On  Monday  we  opened  to  a  fairly  large  house 


250  Our  Irish  Theatre 

with  comedies  and  they  were  well  received.  The 
Hull  House  Players  came  and  gave  me  a  lovely 
bunch  of  roses.  They  have  been  acting  some  of 
my  plays.  When  I  got  back  to  the  hotel,  I  found 
a  threatening  letter  written  in  vile  language,  and 
with  picture  of  coffin  and  pistol,  saying  I  would 
'never  see  the  hills  of  Connemara  again, '  and  was 
about  to  meet  with  my  death.  It  seems  a  miracle 
to  have  got  through  such  a  Wood  of  Dangers  with 
flags  flying. " 

"Feb.  I2th.  Everything  goes  on  so  peace- 
ably we  are  astonished.  The  Playboy  finished  its 
five  days'  run  on  Saturday  with  never  a  boo  or  a 
hiss.  I  believe  the  enemy  are  making  some  excuse 
for  themselves,  saying  they  won't  riot  because  it 
was  said  they  were  paid  to  do  so,  but  it  is  an 
extraordinary  defeat  for  them.  Quinn  was  much 
excited  over  it  when  he  was  here,  and  he  did  not 
know  the  extent  of  our  victory.  He  thinks  it  the 
pricking  of  the  bubble  of  all  the  societies  that  have 
been  terrorising  people.  Fibs-  go  on ,  of  course,  and  a 

Mrs.  F told  me  that  her  Irish  maid  said  she 

had  been  forbidden  to  go  to  The  Playboy  'be- 
cause it  runs  down  the  courage  of  the  Irish. '  She 
was  sad,  and  said  '  The  Irish  always  had  courage.' 


"The  Playboy"  in  America       251 

"It  makes  one  think  The  Playboy  more  harm- 
less even  than  one  had  thought,  their  having  to 
make  up  these  inventions.  One  is  glad  to  put  it  on 
for  them  to  see.  I  feel  like  Pegeen  showing  off 
Christy  to  the  Widow  Quinn,  'See  now  is  he 
roaring,  romping  ? '  The  author  of '  An  Open  Letter 
to  Lady  Gregory'  came  to  me  at  some  Club  to 
ask  if  I  had  seen  it.  I  said  yes,  and  that  the  paper 
had  telephoned  to  know  if  I  would  answer  it,  but 
I  had  said  no,  and  that  I  wished  all  my  critics 
would  write  me  open  letters  instead  of  personal 
ones,  as  I  could  leave  them  unanswered  without 
discourtesy. 

"We  have  a  good  following  among  the  intel- 
lectuals, and  a  good  many  Irish  begin  to  come  in. 
We  know  that  by  the  reception  of  Rising  of  the 
Moon. 

"Coming  back  from  my  lecture  at  Detroit,  I 
was  to  have  arrived  at  Chicago  at  eight  o'clock. 
I  awoke  to  find  we  were  in  a  blizzard.  The  train 
got  stuck  in  a  suburb  of  Chicago,  and  after  hours 
of  waiting  we  had  to  wade  across  the  track,  ankle 
deep  in  snow,  I  in  my  thin  shoes!  After  fighting 
the  blizzard,  we  had  to  sit  in  a  shed  for  another 
hour  or  two.  Then  they  said  we  must  wade 


252  Our  Irish  Theatre 

back  to  the  train.  They  thought  it  could  be 
run  to  the  station.  I  thought  I  might  as  well 
wait  for  my  end  where  I  was,  as  I  could  not  carry 
my  baggage  and  there  was  no  one  to  help  me,  so 
stayed  on  my  bench.  After  a  bit  some  omnibuses 
came  to  our  relief,  and  I  being  near  the  door  was 
put  in  first,  and  got  to  the  hotel  at  three  o'clock. 
I  had  not  had  breakfast,  expecting  we  should  be 
in,  and  when  I  asked  for  it  later,  the  car  had  been 
taken  off,  so  all  the  food  I  had  was  a  dry  roll 
I  had  taken  from  the  hotel  on  Sunday.  However, 
I  was  none  the  worse,  and  glad  to  have  seen  a 
blizzard.  It  was  the  worst  they  had  had  for 
many  years,  deaths  were  caused  by  it,  and  much 
damage  was  done. 

"  I  have  been  walking  to  the  theatre  every  night 
as  usual  in  spite  of  that  threatening  letter.  I 
don't  feel  anxious,  for  I  don't  think  from  the 
drawing  that  the  sender  has  much  practical 
knowledge  of  firearms. 

"I  can  hardly  believe  we  shall  sail  next  week! 
It  will  be  a  great  rest  surely.  .  .  Well,  we  have 
had  a  great  victory!" 


THE  BINDING 

I  HAD  but  just  written  these  pages  and  put 
together  these  letters  when  in  last  Christmas  week 
we  set  out  again  for  America.  We  spent  there  the 
first  four  months  of  this  year,  but  this  time  there 
were  no  riots  and  we  were  of  the  happy  people  who 
have  no  history,  unless  it  may  be  of  the  continued 
kindness  of  America,  and  of  the  growing  kindness 
and  better  understanding  on  the  part  of  our  own 
countrymen 

Last  year,  it  was  often  said  to  me  in  New  York 
and  elsewhere,  "You  must  not  think  that  we 
Americans  helped  in  these  attacks."  And  I 
would  answer,  "No;  our  countrymen  took  care  to 
make  that  clear  by  throwing  our  national  potato. 
If  you  had  attacked  us  you  would  have  thrown 
pumpkins,  and  we  should  have  fared  worse  than 
^sop's  philosopher  under  the  oak." 

I  think  the  facts  I  have  given  show  that  the 
opposition  was  in  every  case  planned  and  ordered 

353 


254  Our  Irish  Theatre 

before  the  plays  had  been  seen — before  we  landed, 
and  by  a  very  small  group  working  through  a 
political  organisation.  As  to  the  reason  and 
meaning  of  that  attack,  it  is  for  those  who  made  it 
to  set  that  out.  I  cannot  but  remember  Alexander 
Hamilton's  words  when  the  building  of  America 
began:  "After  this  war  is  over,  will  come  the  real 
war,  the  great  battle  of  ideas";  and  that  the  long 
political  war  in  Ireland  may  be,  and  seems  to  be, 
nearing  its  end.  I  think  too  of  Laeg  looking  out 
from  the  wounded  Cuchulain's  tent  and  making 
his  report  at  Ilgaireth:  "I  see  a  little  herd  of  cattle 
breaking  out  from  the  west  of  Ailell's  camp,  and 
there  are  lads  following  after  them  and  trying  to 
bring  them  back,  and  I  see  more  lads  coming  out 
from  the  army  of  Ulster  to  attack  them" ;  and  how 
Cuchulain  said:  "That  little  herd  on  the  plain  is 
the  beginning  of  a  great  battle."  The  battle  of 
ideas  has  been  fought  elsewhere  and  against  other 
dramatists.  Was  not  Ibsen  banished  from  his 
country,  and  Molie"re  refused  Christian  burial? 
It  is  after  all  the  old  story  of  the  two  sides  of  the 
shield.  Some  who  are  lovers  of  Ireland  believe  we 
have  lessened  the  dignity  of  Ireland  by  showing 
upon  the  stage  countrymen  who  drink  and  swear 


The  Binding  255 

and  admire  deeds  of  violence,  or  who  are  misers 
and  covetous  or  hungering  after  land.  We  who 
are  lovers  of  Ireland  believe  that  our  Theatre 
with  its  whole  mass  of  plays  has  very  greatly  in- 
creased that  dignity,  and  we  are  content  to  leave 
that  judgment  to  the  great  arbitrator,  Time.  And 
amongst  the  Irish  in  America  it  was  easy  to  rouse 
feeling  against  us.  Is  not  the  new  baby  always  the 
disturber  in  the  household?  Our  school  of  drama 
is  the  newest  birth  in  Ireland,  that  Ireland  which 
had  become  almost  consecrated  by  distance  and 
by  romance.  An  old  Irishwoman  who  loves  her 
country  very  much  said  while  I  was  in  America: 
"I  don't  want  to  go  back  and  see  Ireland  again. 
It  is  a  finished  picture  in  my  mind."  But  Ireland 
cannot  always  be  kept  as  a  sampler  upon  the  wall. 
It  has  refused  to  be  cut  off  from  the  creative  work 
of  the  intellect,  and  the  other  countries  creating 
literature  have  claimed  her  as  of  their  kin. 

I  wish  my  countrymen,  before  coming  into  the 
fight,  had  known  it  to  be  so  unequal.  They  had 
banished  from  the  stage  one  or  two  plays  that  had 
given  them  offence  and  no  one  had  greatly  cared. 
But  works  of  imagination  such  as  those  of  Synge 
could  not  be  suppressed  even  if  burned  in  the 


256  Our  Irish  Theatre 

market  place.  They  had  not  realised  the  tre- 
mendous support  we  had,  that  we  were  not  fighting 
alone,  but  with  the  intellect  of  America  as  well  as 
of  Europe  at  our  back. 

There  was  another  thing  they  had  not  reckoned 
with.  It  had  been  put  down  in  words  by  Professor 
William  James:  "Democracy  is  still  upon  its  trial. 
The  civic  genius  of  our  people  is  its  only  bulwark 
and  neither  laws  nor  monuments,  neither  battle- 
ships nor  public  libraries,  nor  churches  nor  uni- 
versities can  save  us  from  degeneration  if  the  inner 
mystery  be  lost.  That  mystery,  at  once  the 
secret  and  glory  of  our  English-speaking  race, 
consists  in  nothing  but  two  common  habits,  two 
inveterate  habits,  carried  into  public  life.  One  of 
these  is  the  habit  of  trained  and  disciplined  good 
temper  towards  the  opposite  party  when  it  fairly 
wins  its  innings.  The  other  is  that  of  fierce  and 
merciless  resentment  towards  every  man  or  set 
of  men  who  break  the  public  peace. " 

The  civic  genius  of  America  decided  that  not 
we  but  our  opponents  had  broken  the  public  peace. 

Now,  little  Richard,  that  is  the  whole  story  of  my 
journey;  and  I  wonder  if  by  the  time  you  can  read  it 


The  Binding  257 

you  will  have  forgotten  my  coming  home  with  a  big 
basket  of  grapes  and  bananas  and  grapefruit  and 
oranges  for  you,  and  a  little  flag  with  the  Stars  and 
Stripes. 

I  was  very  glad  to  be  at  home  with  you  again  while 
the  daffodils  were  blooming  out,  and  to  have  no  more 
fighting,  perhaps  for  ever.  And  if  it  is  hard  to  fight 
for  a  thing  you  love,  it  is  harder  to  fight  for  one  you 
have  no  great  love  for.  And  you  will  read  some  day 
in  one  of  those  books  in  the  library  that  are  too  high 
now  for  you  to  reach,  the  story  of  a  man  who  was  said 
to  be  mad  but  has  outlived  many  who  were  not,  and 
who  went  about  fighting  for  the  sake  of  some  one  who 
was  maybe  "the  fright  of  seven  townlands  with  her 
biting  tongue"  though  he  still  called  out  after  every 
battle,  "Dukinea  is  the  most  beautiful  woman  of  the 
world!"  So  think  a  long  time  before  you  choose 
your  road,  little  Richard,  but  when  you  have  chosen 
it,  follow  it  on  to  the  end. 

COOLE,  July  24,  1913. 
17 


Appendices 


359 


APPENDIX  I 

PLAYS   PRODUCED   BY  THE   ABBEY  THEA- 
TRE  CO.   AND    ITS   PREDECESSORS, 
WITH    DATES    OF    FIRST 
PERFORMANCES 

IRISH  LITERARY  THEATRE  AT  ANTIENT  CONCERT 

ROOMS 

May  8th,  1899.   "The  Countess  Cathleen."      W.  B.  Yeats 
"    gth,      "       "The  Heather  Field."  Edward  Martyn 

IRISH  LITERARY  THEATRE  AT  THE  GAIETY  THEATRE 
Feb.  igth,  1900.  "  The  Bending  of  the  Bough. "  George  Moore 
"     igth,     "      "The  Last  Feast  of  the 

Fianna. "  Alice  Milligan 

2Oth,  "Maeve. "  Edward  Martyn 

Oct.  2ist,  1901.  "Diarmuid  and  Crania."         W.  B.  Yeats  and 

George  Moore 

"     zist,      "      "The  Twisting  of  the  Rope. "  Douglas  Hyde 
(The  first  Gaelic  Play  produced  in  any  Theatre.) 

MR.  W.  G.  FAY'S  IRISH  NATIONAL  DRAMATIC  COM- 
PANY AT  ST.  TERESA'S  HALL,  CLARENDON  STREET. 

Apr.  2nd,  1902.   "Deirdre. "  "A.E." 

"     2nd,      "      "Kathleen  Ni  Houlihan."         W.B.Yeats. 

IRISH  NATIONAL  DRAMATIC  COMPANY  AT  ANTIENT 

CONCERT  ROOMS 

Oct.  29th,  1902.  "The  Sleep  of  the  King."          Seumas  O'Cuisin 

261 


262  Our  Irish  Theatre 


Oct.  29th,  1902.  "The  Laying  of  the 

Foundations."  Fred  Ryan 

"    30th,      "     "A  Pot  of  Broth."  W.B.Yeats 

"    sist,      "     "The  Racing  Lug."  Seumas  O'Cuisin 

IRISH  NATIONAL  THEATRE  SOCIETY,  MOLESWORTH 
HALL 

(The  first  prospectus  of  this  Society,  dated  March,  1903,  and  signed  by 
Mr.  Fred  Ryan  began  as  follows:  "  The  Irish  National  Theatre  Society 
was  formed  to  continue  on  a  more  permanent  basis  the  work  of  the  Irish 
Literary  Theatre.") 

Mar.  I4th,  1903.  "The  Hour  Glass."  W.  B.  Yeats 

"     I4th,     "     "Twenty-Five."  Lady  Gregory 

Oct.  8th,        "     "The  King's  Threshold."          W.B.Yeats 
"     8th,        "     "In  the  Shadow  of  the  Glen."  J.  M.  Synge 

Dec.  3rd,       "     "  Broken  Soil. "  Padraic  Colum 

Jan.  I4th,  1904.  "The  Shadowy  Waters."          W.  B.  Yeats 
"     1 4th,      "     "  The  Townland  of  Tamney. "  Seumas 

McManus 

Feb.  25th,     "     "  Riders  to  the  Sea. "  J.  M.  Synge 

IRISH  NATIONAL  THEATRE  SOCIETY  AT  THE  ABBEY 

THEATRE. 

Dec.  27th,  1904.  "  On  Baile's  Strand. "  W.  B.  Yeats 

"    2yth,      "     "  Spreading  the  News. "  Lady  Gregory 

Feb.    4th,  1905.  "The  Well  of  the  Saints."  J.  M.  Synge 

Mar.  25th,     "     "Kincora."  Lady  Gregory 

Apr.  25th,      "     "  The  Building  Fund. "  William  Boyle 

June  gth,       "     "  The  Land. "  Padraic  Colum 

NATIONAL  THEATRE   SOCIETY,  LTD.  (ABBEY 

COMPANY) 

Dec.  9th,  1905.    "The  White  Cockade."  Lady  Gregory 

Jan.  2Oth,  1906.  "The  Eloquent  Dempsy. "  William  Boyle 

Feb.  igth,     "      "Hyacinth  Halvey."  Lady  Gregory 

Oct.  20th,     "      "The  Gaol  Gate."  Lady  Gregory 

"    20th,     "      "The  Mineral  Workers."  William  Boyle 

Nov.  24th,    "      "Deirdre."  W.B.Yeats 

Dec.  8th,      "      "The  Canavans."  Lady  Gregory 


Appendix  I  263 

Dec.    8th,  1906.  New  Version  of  "The  Shadowy 

Waters. "  W.  B.  Yeats 

Jan.  26th,  1907.  "The  Playboy  of  the  Western 

World."  J.  M.  Synge 

Feb.  23rd,     "      "  The  Jackdaw. "  Lady  Gregory 

Mar.  gth,  "  The  Rising  of  the  Moon. "      Lady  Gregory 

Apr.     ist,     "      "The  Eyes  of  the  Blind."         Miss  W.  M. 

Letts 

Apr.    3rd,  1907.  "The  Poorhouse."  Douglas  Hyde 

and  Lady 
Gregory 
"    27th,     "      "Fand."  Wilfrid  Scawen 

Blunt 

Oct.    3rd,     "      "The  Country  Dressmaker."    George  Fitz- 

maurice 

"    3ist,     "      "  Dervorgilla. "  Lady  Gregory 

Nov.  2ist,    "      "The  Unicorn  from  the  Stars. "  W.  B.  Yeats  and 

Lady  Gregory 
Feb.  I3th,  1908.  "The  Man  who  missed  the 

Tide. "  W.  F.  Casey 

"     I3th,    "      "The  Piper."  Norreys  Connell 

Mar.  loth,    "      "The  Piedish."  George  Fitz- 

maurice 

Mar.  igth,    "      "  The  Golden  Helmet. "  W.B.Yeats 

Apr.  2Oth,    "      "The  Workhouse  Ward."          Lady  Gregory 
Oct.  ist,        "      "The  Suburban  Groove."         W.  F.  Casey 
"     8th,     "      "The  Clancy  Name."  Lennox 

Robinson 
"      I5th,  "      "When  the  Dawn  is  come."     Thomas  Mac- 

Donogh 
"     2ist,    "      New  Version,  "The  Man  who 

missed  the  Tide. "  W.  F.  Casey 

Feb.  nth,  1909.  Revised  Version  of  "Kincora"  Lady  Gregory 
Mar.  nth,    "      " Stephen  Grey. "       ',  D.  L.  Kelleher 

Apr.     ist,  "The  Cross  Roads"  Lennox 

Robinson 

ist,     "      "Time."  Norreys  Connell 

"     29th,    "      "The  Glittering  Gate."  Lord  Dunsany 


264  Our  Irish  Theatre 

May  27th,   "      "  An  Imaginary  Conversation.  "Norreys  Connell 
Aug.  25th,    "      "The  Shewing-up  of  Blanco 

Posnet. "  Bernard  Shaw 

Sept.  i6th,    "      "The  White  Feather."  R.J.Ray 

Oct.  I4th,     "      "The  Challenge."  Miss  W.  M. 

Letts 

Nov.  nth,    "      "The  Image"  Lady  Gregory 

Jan.  I3th,  1910.  "Deirdre  of  the  Sorrows."        J.  M.  Synge 
Feb.  loth,     "      "The  Green  Helmet."  W.B.Yeats 

Mar.  2nd,     "      "The  Travelling  Man."  Lady  Gregory 

May  1 2th,    "      "  Thomas  Musketry. "  Padraic  Colum 

"     26th,    "      "Harvest."  Lennox  Robinson 

Sept.  28th,  1910  "The  Casting-out  of  Martin 

Whelan. "  R.  J.  Ray 

Oct.  27th,     "      "Birthright."  T.C.Murray 

Nov.  loth,    "      "The  Full  Moon."  Lady  Gregory 

"     24th,    "      "The  Shuiler's  Child."*  Seumas  O'Kelly 

Dec.  ist,      "      "Coats."  Lady  Gregory 

Jan.  I2th,  1911.  "The  Deliverer."  Lady  Gregory 

"     26th,     "     "  King  Argimenes  and  the 

Unknown  Warrior. "  Lord  Dunsany 

Feb.  l6th,     "      " The  Land  of  Heart's  Desire.  "fW.  B.  Yeats 
Mar.  3Oth,    "      "  Mixed  Marriage. "  St.  John  G. 

Ervine 
Nov.  23rd,    "      "The  Interlude  of  Youth."       Anon.,  first 

printed  1554 

"    23rd,     "      "The  Second  Shepherds'  Play.  "Anon.,  circa  1 400 
"    soth,     "      "The  Marriage."  Douglas  Hyde 

Dec.  7th,     "     "Red  Turf."  Rutherford 

Mayne 
"    I4th,    "      Revival  of  "The  Countess 

Cathleen."  W.B.Yeats 

Jan.    4th,  1912.  "The  Annunciation."  circa  1400 

"     4th,     "      "The  Flight  into  Egypt."         circa  1400 
"    nth,     "      "MacDarragh's  Wife."  Lady  Gregory 

*  First  produced  by  an  amateur   company  at  the  Molesworth  Hall  In 
1909. 

t  First  produced  at  the  Avenue  Theatre,  London,  in  1894. 


Appendix  I 


265 


Feb.    ist,     " 


1    29th, 

Mar.  28th,  " 

Apr.  nth,  " 

"    15th,  " 

June  2Oth,  " 

July    4th,  " 

Oct.  I7th,  " 

Nov.  2ist,  " 


Revival  of  "The  Country 
Dressmaker. " 

"The  Tinker  and  the  Fairy.' 

(Played  in  Gaelic) 
"  The  Worlde  and  the  Chylde, 
"Family  Failing." 
"Patriots." 

"Judgment." 

"Maurice  Harte. " 

"The  Bogie  Men." 

"The  Magnanimous  Lover. " 

"Darner's  Gold." 


George  Fitz- 
maurice 
'   Douglas  Hyde 

"  1 5th  century 
William  Boyle 
Lennox 

Robinson 
Joseph  Campbell 
T.  C.  Murray 
Lady  Gregory 
St.  John  G. 

Ervine 
Lady  Gregory 


TRANSLATIONS  OF  THE  FOLLOWING  HAVE  BEEN 
PRODUCED 


Apr.  i6th,  1906.  "The  Doctor  in  spite  of 
Himself." 

Mar.  i6th,  1907.  "Interior." 
,  1908.  "Teja." 


Apr.    4th,     "      "The  Rogueries  of  Scapin. 


Jan.  2ist,  1909.  "The  Miser." 


Feb.  24th,  1910.  "  Mirandolina. " 


Jan.  5th,  1911.    "Nativity  Play." 


(Moliere.) 
Translated  by 
Lady  Gregory 

(Maeterlinck.) 

(Sudermann.) 
Translated  by 
Lady  Gregory 

(Moliere.) 
Translated  by 
Lady  Gregory 

(Moliere.) 
Translated  by 
Lady  Gregory 

(Goldoni.) 
Translated  by 
Lady  Gregory. 

(Douglas  Hyde.) 
Translated  by 
Lady  Gregory 


266 


Our  Irish  Theatre 


NEW  PRODUCTIONS 

Nov.  2ist,  1912.  "The  Hour  Glass  "  Revised. 

"       "       "      "  Darner's  Gold." 
Jan.  23rd,  1913.  "The  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's." 


Feb.    6th,     "      Revival,  "  Casting-out  of 

Martin  Whelan." 
"    20th,     "      "Hannele." 

Mar.  6th,  "  "  There  are  Crimes  and 
Crimes." 

"  I3th,  "  "  The  Cuckoo's  Nest." 
Apr.  loth,  "  "  The  Homecoming. " 

"    I7th,     "      "  The  Stronger." 

"    24th,     "      "  The  Magic  Glasses." 
"    24th      "      "Broken  Faith." 
Mayiyth,    "     "The  Post  Office." 


G.  Sidney 

Paternoster 

R.  J.  Ray 

Gerhardt 

Hauptmann 
August  Strind- 

berg 

John  Guinan 
Gertrude  Robins 
August  Strind- 

berg 
George  Fitz- 

maurice 
S.  R.  Day  and 

G.D. Cummins 
Rabindranath- 

Tagore 


APPENDIX  II 
"  THE  NATION"  ON  "  BLANCO  POSNET" 

We  have  often  spoken  in  these  columns  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  British  drama  and  the  various  ways  of 
mending  it.  But  there  is  one  of  its  features,  or,  rather, 
one  of  its  disabilities,  as  to  which  some  present  decision 
must  clearly  be  taken.  That  is  the  power  of  the 
Censorship  to  warp  it  for  evil,  and  to  maim  it  for 
good.  There  can  be  no  doubt  at  all  that  this  is  the 
double  function  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain  and  his  office. 
The  drama  that  they  pass  on  and  therefore  commend 
to  the  people  is  a  drama  that  is  always  earthly,  often 
sensual,  and  occasionally  devilish;  the  drama  which 
they  refuse  to  the  people  is  a  drama  that  seeks  to  be 
truthful,  and  is  therefore  not  concerned  with  average 
sensual  views  of  life,  and  that  might,  if  it  were  en- 
couraged, powerfully  touch  the  neglected  spheres  of 
morals  and  religion.  As  to  the  first  count  against  the 
Censorship  there  is  and  can  be  no  defence.  Habemus 
confitentem  reum.  The  man  who  would  pass  Dear 
Old  Charlie  would  pass  anything.  He  has  bound 
himself  to  tolerate  the  drama  of  Wycherley  and  Con- 
greve,  of  which  it  is  a  fairly  exact  and  clever  revival, 

267 


268  Our  Irish  Theatre 

suited  to  modern  hypocrisy  as  to  ways  of  expres- 
sion, but  equally  audacious  in  its  glorification  of 
lying,  adultery,  mockery,  and  light-mindedness. 

The  case  on  the  other  count  is,  we  think,  sufficiently 
made  out  by  the  Censor's  refusal  to  license  Mr.  Bern- 
ard Shaw's  one-act  play,  The  Showing-up  of  Blanco 
Posnet.  It  is  fair  to  the  Censor  to  explain  the 
grounds  of  his  refusal.  Mr.  Shaw  has  been  good 
enough  to  let  the  editor  of  this  paper  see  a  copy  both 
of  his  drama  and  of  the  official  letter  refusing  a 
"license  for  representation"  unless  certain  passages 
were  expunged.  There  were  two  such  passages.  On 
the  second  Mr.  Shaw  assures  us  that  no  difficulty 
could  have  occurred.  It  raised  a  question  of  taste, 
on  which  he  was  willing  to  meet  Mr.  Redford's  views. 
It  seems  to  us  outspoken  rather  than  gross,  but  as  it 
was  not  the  subject  of  controversy  we  dismiss  it,  and 
recur  to  the  critical  point  on  which  Mr.  Shaw,  con- 
sidering— and,  in  our  view,  rightly  considering — that 
the  heart  and  meaning  of  his  play  were  at  issue,  refused 
to  give  way.  In  order  that  we  may  explain  the 
quarrel,  it  is  necessary  to  give  some  slight  sketch 
of  the  character  and  intention  of  The  Showing-up 
of  Blanco  Posnet.  We  suggest  as  the  simplest  clue 
to  its  tone  and  atmosphere  that  it  reproduces  in  some 
measure  the  subject  and  the  feeling  of  Bret  Harte's 
Luck  of  Roaring  Camp.  It  depicts  a  coarse  and 
violent  society,  governed  by  emotions  and  crude  wants 
rather  than  by  principles  and  laws,  a  society  of 
drunkards,  lynchers,  duellists  at  sight,  and,  above  all, 
horse-stealers — in  other  words,  a  world  of  convention- 


Appendix  II  269 

ally  bad  men,  liable  to  good  impulses.  The  "hero" 
is  something  of  a  throw-back  to  Dick  Dudgeon,  of 
the  Devil's  Disciple;  that  is  to  say,  he  is  reckless 
and  an  outcast,  who  retains  the  primitive  virtue  of 
not  lying  to  himself. 

The  scene  of  the  play  is  a  trial  for  horse-stealing. 
Blanco  is  a  nominal — not  a  real — horse-stealer,  that  is 
to  say,  he  has  committed  the  sin  which  a  society  of 
horsemen  does  not  pardon.  He  has  run  away  with 
the  Sheriff's  horse,  believing  it  to  be  his  brother's, 
and  taking  it  on  account  of  a  fraudulent  settlement 
of  the  family  estate.  A  man  of  his  hands,  he  has  yet 
allowed  himself  to  be  tamely  captured  and  brought 
before  a  jury  of  lynchers.  Why?  Well,  he  has  been 
upset,  overtaken,  his  plan  of  life  twisted  and  involved 
out  of  all  recognition.  On  his  way  with  the  horse,  a 
woman  met  him  with  a  child  dying  of  croup.  She 
stopped  him,  thrust  the  sick  child  on  to  the  horse,  and 
"commandeered"  it  for  a  ride  to  the  nearest  doctor's. 
The  child  has  thrust  its  weak  arms  round  his  neck, 
and  with  that  touch  all  the  strength  has  gone  out  of 
him.  He  gives  up  the  horse  and  flies  away  into  the 
night,  covering  his  retreat  from  this  new  superior 
force  with  obscene  curses,  and  surrendering,  dis- 
mounting, dazed,  and  helpless,  to  the  Sheriff  when 
the  posse  comitatus  catches  him. 

Thenceforward  two  opposing  forces  rend  him,  and 
make  life  unintelligible  and  unendurable  while  they 
struggle  for  his  soul.  Dragged  into  the  Sheriff's  court, 
he  is  prepared  to  fight  for  his  neck  with  the  rascals 
who  sit  in  judgment  on  him,  to  lie  against  them,  and  to 


270  Our  Irish  Theatre 

browbeat  them.  Unjust  and  filthy  as  they  are,  he 
will  be  unjust  and  filthy  too.  But  then  there  was  this 
apparition  of  the  child.  What  did  it  mean?  Why  has 
it  unmanned  him?  And  here  it  seems  to  him  that 
God  has  at  once  destroyed  and  tricked  him,  for  the 
child  is  dead,  and  yet  his  life  is  forfeit  to  these  brutes. 
The  situation — this  sketch  of  a  sudden,  ruthless, 
unintelligible  interference  with  the  lives  of  men — 
though  apparently  unknown  to  the  Censor,  will  be 
familiar  to  readers  of  the  Bible  and  of  religious  poetry 
and  prose,  and  Mr.  Shaw's  treatment  of  it  could 
only  offend  either  the  non-religious  mind  or  the  sin- 
cerely, but  conventionally,  pious  man  who  is  so  wrapt 
up  in  the  emotional  view  of  religion  that  its  sterner 
and  deeper  moralities  escape  him.  The  literary 
parallels  will  at  once  occur.  Browning  chooses  the 
subject  in  Pippa  Passes,  and  in  the  poem  in  which 
he  describes  how  the  strong  man  who  had  hemmed  in 
and  surrounded  his  enemy  suddenly  found  himself 
stayed  by  the  "arm  that  came  across"  and  saved 
the  wretch  from  vengeance.  Ibsen  dwells  on  this 
divine  thwarting  and  staying  power  in  Peer  Gynt, 
and  it  is,  of  course,  the  opening  theme  of  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress.  As  it  presents  itself  to  a  coarse  and 
reckless,  but  sincere,  man  he  deals  with  it  in  coarse 
but  sincere  language — the  language  which  the  Censor 
refuses  to  pass.  Here  is  the  offending  passage,  which 
occurs  in  a  dialogue  between  Blanco  and  his  drunken 
hypocrite  of  a  brother: — 

"BLANCO:  Take  care,  Boozy.     He  has  n't  finished 


Appendix  II  271 

with  you  yet.  He  always  has  a  trick  up  his 
sleeve. 

"ELDER  DANIELS:  Oh,  is  that  the  way  to  speak  of 
the  Ruler  of  the  Universe — the  great  and  almighty 
God? 

"BLANCO:  He 's  a  sly  one.  He 's  a  mean  one.  He 
lies  low  for  you.  He  plays  cat  and  mouse  with  you. 
He  lets  you  run  loose  until  you  think  you  're  shut 
of  Him;  and  then  when  you  least  expect  it,  He  's 
got  you. 

"ELDER  DANIELS:  Speak  more  respectful,  Blanco — 
more  reverent. 

"  BLANCO:  Reverent!  Who  taught  you  your  rever- 
ent cant?  Not  your  Bible.  It  says,  'He  cometh  like 
a  thief  in  the  night ' — aye,  like  a  thief — a  horse-thief. 
And  it's  true.  That 's  how  He  caught  me  and  put  my 
neck  into  the  halter.  To  spite  me  because  I  had  no 
use  for  Him — because  I  lived  my  own  life  in  my  own 
way,  and  would  have  no  truck  with  His  'Don't  do 
this,'  and  'You  must  n't  do  that,'  and  'You  '11  go  to 
hell  if  you  do  the  other.'  I  gave  Him  the  go-bye, 
and  did  without  Him  all  these  years.  But  He  caught 
me  out  at  last.  The  laugh  is  with  Him  as  far  as 
hanging  goes. " 

Now,  let  us  first  note  the  incapacity  of  the  critic  of  such 
an  outburst  as  this  to  think  in  terms  of  the  dramatic 
art — to  divine  the  itat  d'dme  of  the  speaker,  and  to 
recognise  the  method,  and,  within  bounds,  the  idiosyn- 
cracy  of  the  playwright.  But  having  regard  to  all 
that  the  Censor  has  done  and  all  that  he  has  left  un- 


272  Our  Irish  Theatre 

done,  let  us  also  mark  his  resolve  to  treat  as  mere 
blasphemy  on  Mr.  Shaw's  part  the  artist's  endeavour 
to  depict  a  rough  man's  first  consciousness  of  a  Power 
that,  selecting  Blanco  as  it  selected  Paul  and  John 
Bunyan,  threatens  to  drag  him  through  moral  shame 
and  physical  death,  if  need  be,  to  life,  and  not  to  let 
him  go  till  He  has  wrought  His  uttermost  purpose 
on  him.  Mr.  Shaw  naturally  makes  Blanco  talk  as 
an  American  horse-stealer  would  talk.  But  how  does 
Job  talk  of  God,  or  the  Psalmist,  or  the  Author  of 
the  Parables?  Nearly  every  one  of  Blanco  Posnet's 
railings  can  be  paralleled  from  Job.  Listen  to  this: — 

"The  tabernacles  of  robbers  prosper,  and  they  that 
provoke  God  are  secure,  into  whose  hand  God  bringeth 
abundantly. 

"  He  removeth  away  the  speech  of  the  trusty,  and 
taketh  away  the  understanding  of  the  aged. 

"  He  taketh  the  heart  of  the  chief  of  the  people  of 
the  earth  and  causeth  them  to  wander  in  a  wilderness 
where  there  is  no  way. 

"  They  grope  in  the  dark  without  light,  and  He 
maketh  them  to  stagger  like  a  drunken  man. 


"  Know  now  that  God  hath  overthrown  me,  and 
hath  compassed  me  with  His  net. 

"He  hath  fenced  up  my  way  that  I  cannot  pass, 
and  He  hath  set  darkness  in  my  paths. 

"  He  hath  destroyed  me  on  every  side,  and  I  am 
gone:  and  mine  hope  hath  He  removed  like  a  tree. " 


Appendix  II  273 

Is  this  blasphemy?  Is  not  Mr.  Shaw's  theme  and 
its  expression  a  reflection  of  Job's,  save  that  in  the  one 
case  a  bad  man  speaks,  and  in  the  other  a  good  one? 
If  the  answer  is  that  these  subjects,  these  moral  and 
religious  relationships,  must  not  be  treated  on  the 
stage,  then  we  reply  first  that  the  Censor  is  grossly 
inconsistent,  for  he  did  not  veto  the  entire  play,  but 
only  that  passage  which  most  clearly  revealed  its 
meaning;  secondly,  that  the  licensing  of  Everyman, 
and  of  Mr.  Jerome's  The  Third  Floor  Back,  where  God 
appears,  not  merely  as  an  influence  on  the  lives  of 
men,  but  as  a  man,  sitting  at  their  table  and  sharing 
their  talk,  forbids  such  an  hypothesis;  and  thirdly, 
that  if  Mr.  Redford  holds  this  view,  he  is  convicted 
of  opening  the  drama  to  horrible  mockery  of  life  and 
sensual  trifling  with  it,  and  closing  it  to  those  close 
questionings  of  its  purpose,  which  constitute  the  main 
theme  of  all  serious  playwrights  from  ^Eschylus  to 
Ibsen.  That  Mr.  Shaw  could  have  consented  to  the 
omission  of  the  passage  we  have  quoted  was  out  of 
the  question.  It  is  vital.  The  entire  play  turns  on 
it.  For  when  the  woman  comes  into  court  and  tells 
her  story,  it  is  seen  that  the  leaven  which  works  in 
Blanco's  mind  has  leavened  the  lump;  that  the  pro- 
stitute who  is  for  swearing  away  his  life  cannot  speak, 
that  the  ferocious  jury  will  not  convict,  and  the  unjust 
judge  will  not  sentence. 

Mr.  Shaw  had,  therefore,  to  fight  for  his  play,  and 
the  Censor  has  to  come  into  the  open  and  face  the 
music;  to  reveal  his  theory  of  the  British  drama,  and 
illustrate  his  continual  practice  of  it ;  which  is  to  warn 

18 


274  Our  Irish  Theatre 

off  the  artist  and  the  preacher,  and  to  clear  the  path 
for  the  scoffer  and  the  clown. 

LETTER  FROM  W.  G.  BERNARD  SHAW  TO 
LADY   GREGORY  AFTER   THE   PRO- 
DUCTION OF  "BLANCO  POSNET" 

DEAR  LADY  GREGORY: 

Now  that  the  production  of  Blanco  Posnet  has 
revealed  the  character  of  the  play  to  the  public,  it 
may  be  as  well  to  clear  up  some  of  the  points  raised  by 
the  action  of  the  Castle  in  the  matter. 

By  the  Castle,  I  do  not  mean  the  Lord  Lieutenant. 
He  was  in  Scotland  when  the  trouble  began.  Nor  do 
I  mean  the  higher  officials  and  law  advisers.  I  con- 
clude that  they  also  were  either  in  Scotland,  or  pre- 
occupied by  the  Horse  Show,  or  taking  their  August 
holiday  in  some  form.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  friction 
ceased  when  the  Lord  Lieutenant  returned.  But  in 
the  meantime  the  deputies  left  to  attend  to  the  busi- 
ness of  the  Castle  found  themselves  confronted  with 
a  matter  which  required  tactful  handling  and  careful 
going.  They  did  their  best;  but  they  broke  down 
rather  badly  in  point  of  law,  in  point  of  diplomatic 
etiquette,  and  in  point  of  common  knowledge. 

First,  they  committed  the  indiscretion  of  practically 
conspiring  with  an  English  official  who  has  no  juris- 
diction in  Ireland  in  an  attempt  to  intimidate  an 
Irish  theatre. 

Second,  they  assumed  that  this  official  acts  as  the 
agent  of  the  King,  whereas,  as  Sir  Harry  Poland 


Appendix  II  275 

established  in  a  recent  public  controversy  on  the  sub- 
ject, his  powers  are  given  him  absolutely  by  Act  of 
Parliament  (1843).  If  the  King  were  to  write  a  play, 
this  official  could  forbid  its  performance,  and  probably 
would  if  it  were  a  serious  play  and  were  submitted 
without  the  author's  name,  or  with  mine. 

Third,  they  assumed  that  the  Lord  Lieutenant  is 
the  servant  of  the  King.  He  is  nothing  of  the  sort. 
He  is  the  Viceroy:  that  is,  he  is  the  King  in  the 
absence  of  Edward  VII.  To  suggest  that  he  is  bound 
to  adopt  the  views  of  a  St.  James's  Palace  official  as 
to  what  is  proper  to  be  performed  in  an  Irish  theatre 
is  as  gross  a  solecism  as  it  would  be  to  inform  the  King 
that  he  must  not  visit  Marienbad  because  some  Castle 
official  does  not  consider  Austria  a  sufficiently  Pro- 
testant country  to  be  a  fit  residence  for  an  English 
monarch. 

Fourth,  they  referred  to  the  Select  Committee  which 
is  now  investigating  the  Censorship  in  London  whilst 
neglecting  to  inform  themselves  of  its  purpose.  The 
Committee  was  appointed  because  the  operation  of 
the  Censorship  had  become  so  scandalous  that  the 
Government  could  not  resist  the  demand  for  an 
inquiry.  At  its  very  first  sitting  it  had  to  turn  the 
public  and  press  out  of  the  room  and  close  its  doors 
to  discuss  the  story  of  a  play  licensed  by  the  official 
who  barred  Blanco  Posnet;  and  after  this  experience 
it  actually  ruled  out  all  particulars  of  licensed  plays 
as  unfit  for  public  discussion.  With  the  significant 
exception  of  Mr.  George  Edwards,  no  witness  yet 
examined,  even  among  those  who  have  most 


276  Our  Irish  Theatre 

strongly  supported  the  Censorship  as  an  institution, 
has  defended  the  way  in  which  it  is  now  exercised. 
The  case  which  brought  the  whole  matter  to  a  head 
was  the  barring  of  this  very  play  of  mine,  The  Shew- 
ing up  of  Blanco  Posnet.  All  this  is  common  know- 
ledge. Yet  the  Castle,  assuming  that  I,  and  not  the 
Censorship,  am  the  defendant  in  the  trial  now  pro- 
ceeding in  London,  treated  me,  until  the  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant's return,  as  if  I  were  a  notoriously  convicted 
offender.  This,  I  must  say,  is  not  like  old  times  in 
Ireland.  Had  I  been  a  Catholic,  a  Sinn  Feiner,  a 
Land  Leaguer,  a  tenant  farmer,  a  labourer,  or  any- 
thing that  from  the  Castle  point  of  view  is  congenitally 
wicked  and  coercible,  I  should  have  been  prepared  for 
it;  but  if  the  Protestant  landed  gentry,  of  which  I 
claim  to  be  a  perfectly  correct  member,  even  to  the 
final  grace  of  absenteeism,  is  to  be  treated  in  this  way 
by  the  Castle,  then  English  rule  must  indeed  be 
going  to  the  dogs.  Of  my  position  of  a  representative 
of  literature  I  am  far  too  modest  a  man  to  speak ;  but 
it  was  the  business  of  the  Castle  to  know  it  and  respect 
it;  and  the  Castle  did  neither. 

Fifth,  they  reported  that  my  publishers  had  refused 
to  supply  a  copy  of  the  play  for  the  use  of  the  Lord 
Lieutenant,  leaving  it  to  be  inferred  that  this  was  done 
by  my  instructions  as  a  deliberate  act  of  discourtesy. 
Now  no  doubt  my  publishers  were  unable  to  supply 
a  copy,  because,  as  it  happened,  the  book  was  not 
published,  and  could  not  be  published  until  the  day 
of  the  performance  without  forfeiting  my  American 
copyright,  which  is  of  considerable  value.  Private 


Appendix  II  277 

copies  only  were  available ;  but  if  the  holiday  deputies 
of  the  Castle  think  that  the  Lord  Lieutenant  found 
the  slightest  difficulty  in  obtaining  such  copies,  I 
can  only  pity  their  total  failure  to  appreciate  either 
his  private  influence  or  his  public  importance. 

Sixth,  they  claimed  that  Sir  Herbert  Beerbohm 
Tree,  who  highly  values  good  understanding  with  the 
Dublin  public,  had  condemned  the  play.  What  are 
the  facts?  Sir  Herbert,  being  asked  by  the  Select 
Committee  whether  he  did  not  think  that  my  play 
would  shock  religious  feeling,  replied  point-blank, 4<  No, 
it  would  heighten  religious  feeling."  He  announced 
the  play  for  production  at  his  theatre ;  the  Censorship 
forced  him  to  withdraw  it;  and  the  King  instantly 
shewed  his  opinion  of  the  Censorship  by  making 
Sir  Herbert  a  Knight.  But  it  also  happened  that 
Sir  Herbert,  who  is  a  wit,  and  knows  the  weight  of 
the  Censor's  braimto  half  a  scruple,  said  with  a  chuckle 
when  he  came  upon  the  phrase  "immoral  relations" 
in  the  play,  "They  won't  pass  that."  And  they  did 
not  pass  it.  That  the  deputy  officials  should  have 
overlooked  Sir  Herbert's  serious  testimony  to  the 
religious  propriety  of  the  play,  and  harped  on  his  little 
jest  at  the  Censor's  expense  as  if  it  were  at  my  expense, 
is  a  fresh  proof  of  the  danger  of  transacting  important 
business  at  the  Castle  when  all  the  responsible  officials 
are  away  bathing. 

On  one  point,  however,  the  Castle  followed  the 
established  Castle  tradition.  It  interpreted  the 
patent  (erroneously)  as  limiting  the  theatre  to  Irish 
plays.  Now  the  public  is  at  last  in  possession  of  the 


278  Our  Irish  Theatre 

1  fact  that  the  real  protagonist  in  my  play  who  does  not 
appear  in  person  on  the  stage  at  all,  is  God.  In  my 
youth  the  Castle  view  was  that  God  is  essentially 
Protestant  and  English;  and  as  the  Castle  never 
changes  its  views,  it  is  bound  to  regard  the  divine 
protagonist  as  anti-Irish  and  consequently  outside 
the  terms  of  the  patent.  Whether  it  will  succeed  in 
persuading  the  Lord  Lieutenant  to  withdraw  the 
patent  on  that  ground  will  probably  depend  not  only 
on  His  Excellency's  theological  views,  but  on  his 
private  opinion  of  the  wisdom  with  which  the  Castle 
behaves  in  his  absence.  The  Theatre  thought  the 
risk  worth  while  taking;  and  I  agreed  with  them.  At 
all  events  Miss  Horniman  will  have  no  difficulty  in 
insuring  the  patent  at  an  extremely  reasonable  rate. 
In  conclusion,  may  I  say  that  from  the  moment 
when  the  Castle  made  its  first  blunder  I  never  had 
any  doubt  of  the  result,  and  that  I  kept  away  from 
Dublin,  in  order  that  our  national  theatre  might  have 
the  entire  credit  of  handling  and  producing  a  new 
play  without  assistance  from  the  author  or  from  any 
other  person  trained  in  the  English  theatres.  Nobody 
who  has  not  lived,  as  I  have  to  live,  in  London,  can 
possibly  understand  the  impression  the  Irish  players 
made  there  this  year,  or  appreciate  the  artistic  value 
of  their  performances,  their  spirit,  and  their  methods. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  I  placed  Blanco  Posnet 
at  their  disposal  only  because  it  was,  as  an  unlicensed 
play,  the  refuse  of  the  English  market.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  there  was  no  such  Hobson's  choice  in  the  matter. 
I  offered  a  licensed  play  as  an  alternative,  and  am  all 


Appendix  II  279 

the  more  indebted  to  Lady  Gregory  and  Mr.  Yeats 
for  not  choosing  it.  Besides,  Ireland  is  really  not  so 
negligible  from  the  commercial-theatrical  point  of 
view  as  some  of  our  more  despondent  patriots  seem 
to  suppose.  Of  the  fifteen  countries  outside  Britain 
in  which  my  plays  are  performed,  my  own  is  by  no 
means  the  least  lucrative ;  and  even  if  it  were,  I  should 
not  accept  its  money  value  as  a  measure  of  its  im- 
portance. 

G.  BERNARD  SHAW. 
PARKNASILLA, 
27  August,  1909. 


APPENDIX  III 
"THE   PLAYBOY  IN   AMERICA"^ 

(Note  to  page  180) 
From  "THE  GAELIC  AMERICAN,"  Oct.  14,  1911" 

IRISHMEN  WILL  STAMP  OUT  THE   "PLAY- 
BOY" 

October  14,  1911: — "Resolved — That  we,  the 
United  Irish-American  Societies  of  New  York,  make 
every  reasonable  effort,  through  a  committee,  to  in- 
duce those  responsible  for  the  presentation  of  The 
Playboy  to  withdraw  it,  and  failing  in  this  we  pledge 
ourselves  as  one  man  to  use  every  means  in  our 
power  to  drive  the  vile  thing  from  the  stage,  as  we 
drove  McFadden's  Row  of  Flats  and  the  abomination 
produced  by  the  Russell  Brothers,  and  we  ask  the 
aid  in  this  work  of  every  decent  Irish  man  and  woman, 
and  of  the  Catholic  Church,  whose  doctrines  and  de- 
votional practices  are  held  up  to  scorn  and  ridicule 
in  Synge's  monstrosity." 

(Note  to  page  202) 
From  THE  NEW  YORK  "TIMES" 

November  28,  1911: — When    Christopher    Mahon 
280 


Appendix  III  281 

said:  "I  killed  my  father  a  week  and  a  half  ago  for 
the  likes  of  that,"  instantly  voices  began  to  call  from 
all  over  the  theatre : 

"Shame!     Shame!" 

A  potato  swept  through  the  air  from  the  gallery 
and  smashed  against  the  wings.  Then  came  a  shower 
of  vegetables  that  rattled  against  the  scenery  and  made 
the  actors  duck  their  heads  and  fly  behind  the  stage 
setting  for  shelter. 

A  potato  struck  Miss  Magee,  and  she,  Irish  like, 
drew  herself  up  and  glared  defiance.  Men  were  rising 
in  the  gallery  and  balcony  and  crying  out  to  stop  the 
performance.  In  the  orchestra  several  men  stood  up 
and  shook  their  fists. 

' '  Go  on  with  the  play, "  came  an  order  from  the  stage 
manager,  and  the  players  took  their  places  and  began 
again  to  speak  their  lines. 

The  tumult  broke  out  more  violently  than  before, 
and  more  vegetables  came  sailing  through  the  air  and 
rolled  about  the  stage.  Then  began  the  fall  of  soft 
cubes  that  broke  as  they  hit  the  stage.  At  first  these 
filled  the  men  and  women  in  the  audience  and  on  the 
stage  with  fear,  for  only  the  disturbers  knew  what  they 
were. 

Soon  all  knew.  They  were  capsules  filled  with 
asafoetida,  and  their  odour  was  suffocating  and  most 
revolting. 

One  of  the  theatre  employes  had  run  to  the  street 
to  ask  for  police  protection  at  the  outset  of  the  disturb- 
ance, but  the  response  was  so  slow  that  the  ushers 
and  the  doortenders  raced  up  the  stairs  and  threw 


282  Our  Irish  wheatre 

themselves  into  a  knot  of  men  who  were  standing  and 
yelling  "Shame!" 

(Note  to  page  205) 
From  THE  NEW  YORK  "SUN" 

Wednesday,  November  29,  1911: — Col.  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  who  had  been  entertained  at  dinner  prior 
to  the  play  by  Lady  Gregory,  the  author-producer  of 
many  of  the  Irish  plays,  and  Chief  Magistrate  Mc- 
Adoo  sat  with  Lady  Gregory  in  one  of  the  lower  tier 
boxes.  Col.  Roosevelt  was  there  representing  the 
Outlook,  for  he  said  that  if  he  had  any  ideas  on  the 
subject  of  the  morals  and  merits  of  Synge's  play  he 
would  write  them  in  Dr.  Abbott's  paper,  and  Magis- 
trate McAdoo  was  there  for  Mayor  Gaynor  to  stop 
the  play  if  he  saw  anything  contrary  to  the  public 
morals  in  it.  Mr.  McAdoo  said  that  his  task  was  a 
light  one  and  Col.  Roosevelt  did  not  have  to  say 
anything.  He  just  applauded. 

When  Col.  Roosevelt  appeared  on  a  side  aisle 
escorting  Lady  Gregory  to  a  seat  in  the  box  there  was 
a  patter  of  hand  clapping  and  the  Colonel  gallantly 
insisted  that  Lady  Gregory  should  stand  and  receive 
the  applause. 

' '  He  's  here  because  he  smells  a  fight, "  said  some  one 
in  a  whisper  that  rebounded  from  the  acoustic  board 
overhead  and  was  audible  all  over  the  house. 

When  Magistrate  McAdoo  arrived  somebody  asked 
him  if  he  were  serving  in  an  official  capacity,  to  which 
he  replied  that  the  Mayor  had  asked  him  to  drop  in 


Appendix  III  283 

and  see  the  play  which  had  so  roused  the  wrath  of 
reputed  Irishmen  on  the  night  before.  He  had  orders, 
McAdoo  said,  to  squash  it  the  minute  that  he  should 
see  or  hear  anything  that  might  be  considered  to  have 
tobogganed  over  the  line  of  discretion.  But  Mr. 
McAdoo  said  that  he  thought  he  would  understand 
in  a  fair  spirit,  withal,  the  satire  and  irony  of  the  play, 
if  there  was  such,  and  he  did  not  intend  to  be  a  mar- 
tinet. The  players  graciously  handed  him  out  the 
prompt  book  between  acts  to  see  for  himself  that  the 
line  about "  shifts  "  which  had  raised  a  storm  of  protest 
in  Dublin  as  being  indelicate  had  been  deleted. 

Nothing  happened  during  the  playing  of  the  little 
curtain-raiser,  The  Gaol  Gate,  Lady  Gregory's  grim 
little  tragedy  of  suffering  Ireland,  except  that  near 
the  end  of  the  single  act  in  the  playlet  people  in  the 
gallery  began  a  noisy  warming  up  on  their  coughs  and 
sneezes.  Some  of  the  plain-clothes  men  there  began 
to  amble  around  back  of  the  aisles,  and  they  laid  their 
eyes  on  one  individual  with  a  thick  neck  who  seemed 
about  to  pull  something  out  from  under  his  coat.  Him 
they  landed  just  as  a  quick  curtain  fell  on  the  act  and 
without  ado  they  ousted  him. 

The  citizen  began  to  protest  loudly  that  he  was 
wedged  in  his  seat  and  could  not  stir,  but  two  of  the 
strong  arms  persuaded  him  that  he  might  as  well 
unwedge  himself  before  something  happened.  The 
little  interlude  was  not  sufficiently  stirring  even  to 
attract  the  notice  of  those  in  the  balcony  and  orchestra 
below. 


284  Our  Irish  Theatre 

Everybody  believed  that  the  trouble  was  all  past 
with  the  second  act,  but  the  third  and  last  was  the 
noisiest  of  the  three. 

It  appeared  that,  failing  to  find  any  single  line  to 
which  they  could  take  exception,  those  who  had  come 
to  protest  against  what  they  conceived  to  be  the  libel- 
ling of  the  Irish  race  were  ready  to  take  it  out  in  one 
long  spell  of  hissing. 

The  cue  was  given  when  the  drunken  Michael  James, 
the  inn  keeper,  came  on  the  stage  to  unite  with  a  maud- 
lin blessing  the  lovers,  Christopher  and  Margaret. 

As  in  the  second  act  the  seat  of  disturbance  was  in 
the  balcony  and  thither  six  plain- clothes  men  were 
hastened.  Three  heads  were  together  and  one  man 
was  beating  time  with  his  hand  while  they  took  relays 
in  hissing.  The  plain-clothes  men  descended  and  the 
three  were  yanked  from  their  seats  without  benefit  of 
explanation. 

"  But  we  're  Englishmen,"  said  one  of  them, ' '  and  we 
take  exception  to  the  line,  'Khaki  clad  cut-throats,' 
meaning  of  course  the  English  constabulary. " 

"And  don't  call  me  an  Irishman,"  said  the  third, 
while  he  adjusted  his  neck  gingerly  in  the  collar  that 
had  been  tightened  by  the  cop's  grip.  "I  'm  a  Jew 
and  I  was  born  in  St.  Joe,  Missoury,  and  I  think  this 
play's  rotten,  just  on  general  principles.  And  if  I 
think  so  I  've  got  a  right  to  show  it.  The  law  holds 
that  anybody  has  got  as  good  a  right  to  show  dis- 
pleasure at  a  play  as  pleasure  and  I  saw  my  lawyer 
before  I  came  here,  and " 


Appendix  III  285 

LETTER  FROM  MR.  JOHN  QUINN 

To  THE  EDITOR  OF  A  DUBLIN  NEWSPAPER 

DEAR  SIR  :  Now  that  the  Irish  players  have  been  to 
New  York  and  their  work  seen  and  judged,  the  readers 
of  your  paper  may  be  interested  in  the  publication  of 
one  or  two  facts  in  connection  with  their  visit.  For 
some  time  before  the  company  came  to  New  York 
there  had  been  threats  of  an  organised  attempt  by  a 
small  coterie  of  Irishmen  to  prevent  the  perform- 
ance of  Synge's  Playboy.  It  was  difficult  for  many 
people  in  New  York  who  are  interested  in  the  drama 
and  art  to  take  these  rumours  seriously.  The 
attempt  to  prevent  the  New  York  public  from  hear- 
ing the  work  of  these  Irish  players  of  course  failed. 
There  was  an  organised  attempt  by  perhaps  a 
hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  Irishmen  on  the 
first  night  The  Playboy  was  given  here  to  prevent 
the  performance  by  hissing  and  booing,  and  by 
throwing  potatoes  and  other  objects  at  the  actors, 
and  red  pepper  and  asafcetida  among  the  audience. 
The  disturbers  were  ejected  from  the  theatre  by 
the  police.  All  the  great  metropolitan  papers, 
morning  and  evening,  condemned  this  organised 
disturbance.  The  second  night,  some  six  or  seven 
disturbers  were  put  out  of  the  theatre  by  the  police, 
and  that  was  the  end  of  the  long-threatened  attempt 
to  break  up  the  performance  of  these  plays.  The 
issue  was  not  between  the  plays  and  the  players  and 
the  disturbers,  but  between  the  New  York  public  and 
the  disturbers.  This  fight  over  Synge  was  of  vast 


286  Our  Irish  Theatre 

importance  for  us  as  a  city.  One  night  settled  that 
question  and  settled  it  conclusively. 

I  have  seen  in  some  of  the  daily  and  one  of  the  weekly 
Irish  papers  a  statement  to  the  effect  that  "  The  Play- 
boy was  hooted  from  the  stage.  .  .  after  the  worst 
riot  ever  witnessed  in  a  New  York  playhouse. "  The 
statement  that  it  was  "hooted  from  the  stage"  is  of 
course  utterly  false.  The  greatest  disorder  occurred 
during  the  first  act.  A  few  minutes  after  the  curtain 
fell  at  the  end  of  the  first  act  it  was  raised  again  and 
the  statement  was  made  by  a  member  of  the  company 
that  the  act  would  be  given  entirely  over  again.  This 
announcement  was  greeted  with  cheers  and  applause 
from  the  great  majority  of  the  audience,  who  indig- 
nantly disapproved  the  attempt  of  the  disturbers  to 
prevent  the  performance.  The  play  was  not  "hooted 
from  the  stage. " 

The  attempt  to  prevent  by  force  the  hearing  of  the 
play  having  so  signally  failed,  a  committee  waited 
upon  the  Mayor  of  New  York  City  the  next  day  and 
demanded  the  suppression  of  the  plays.  The  Mayor 
requested  Chief  Judge  McAdoo  of  the  Court  of  Special 
Sessions  to  attend  the  play  as  his  representative  and 
report  to  him.  Judge  McAdoo  is  an  Irishman,  born 
in  Ireland,  and  has  had  a  distinguished  public  career  as 
member  of  Congress,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
and  Police  Commissioner  of  New  York  City,  and  he 
is  now  Chief  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Special  Sessions. 
Judge  McAdoo  attended  the  play  and  made  a  report  to 
the  Mayor  completely  rejecting  the  charges  that  had 
been  made  against  the  morals  and  ethics  of  the  play. 


Appendix  III  287 

Both  attempts  to  prevent  the  performance  of  the 
play,  the  first  by  force  and  the  second  by  appeal  to 
the  authorities,  having  completely  failed,  the  work  of 
distorting  in  the  Irish  papers  what  actually  took  place 
then  began. 

Among  other  things  it  has  been  stated  that  the 
Abbey  Theatre  company  was  not  a  success  in  New 
York.  On  the  contrary  the  success  of  the  company 
has  been  beyond  anything  in  my  personal  experience. 
The  verdict  of  critical  and  artistic  New  York  in  favour 
of  the  work  of  the  Irish  Theatre  has  been  emphatic. 
The  pick  of  the  intellectual  and  artistic  public  crowded 
the  theatre  during  the  weeks  of  the  company's  per- 
formances here  and  admired  and  enjoyed  their  work. 
In  fact  intelligent  New  Yorkers  are  yet  wondering 
what  was  the  real  cause  of  the  attempt  to  prevent  the 
hearing  of  the  plays.  This  is  one  of  the  mysteries 
of  this  winter  in  New  York.  I  am  proud,  as  a  citizen 
of  New  York,  that  New  York's  verdict  of  approval  was 
so  swift  and  decisive,  and  I  am  proud  of  New  York's 
quick  recognition  of  the  excellence  of  the  new  Irish 
school  of  drama  and  acting.  As  a  man  of  Irish  blood, 
my  chief  regret  is  that  organised  prejudice  and  pre- 
judgment  should  have  prevented  these  players  from 
getting  that  welcome  from  a  section  of  their  own 
countrymen  that  I  feel  sure  they  will  secure  in  future 
years.  This  prejudice  was  created  and  the  pre- 
judgment  was  largely  caused  by  the  publication  of 
detached  sentences  and  quotations  from  the  plays, 
while  ignoring  the  art  of  the  actors  and  the  humour 
and  poetry  and  imaginative  beauty  of  the  plays, 


288  Our  Irish  Theatre 

beauties  which,  as  Sir  Philip  Sidney  would  say,  "who 
knoweth  not  to  be  flowers  of  poetry  did  never  walk 
into  Apollo's  garden. " 

Not  only  have  the  New  York  daily  papers  devoted 
columns  to  the  work  of  this  company  throughout  their 
stay,  giving  elaborate  reviews  of  their  work  and  long 
interviews  with  Lady  Gregory  and  others,  but  many 
magazines  have  had  articles  on  the  subject  of  the  plays 
and  writers  and  on  the  Irish  dramatic  movement 
generally,  among  others  the  Yale  Review,  the  Harvard 
Monthly,  Collier's  Weekly,  the  Nation  (two  notices), 
the  Dramatic  Mirror  (five  notices),  the  Metropolitan 
Magazine,  Munsey's  Magazine,  the  Craftsman,  Life, 
Harper's  Weekly  (containing  repeated  notices),  the 
Outlook,  the  Bookman,  and  others.  Lady  Gregory 
has  contributed  articles  to  the  Yale  Review,  the 
World  of  Today  and  the  Delineator,  and  has  lectured 
at  many  places  upon  the  Irish  dramatic  movement. 
The  universities  and  colleges  have  shown  the  live- 
liest interest  in  the  movement.  The  professors  have 
lectured  upon  the  plays  and  the  plays  have  been 
studied  in  the  college  classes  and  the  students  have 
been  advised  to  read  them  and  see  the  players. 

"THE  PLAYBOY"  IN  PHILADELPHIA 

(Note  to  page  218) 
From  PHILADELPHIA  "NORTH  AMERICAN" 

January  17,  1912: — Determined  to  force  their 
dramatic  views  on  the  public  despite  the  arrests  at 
Monday  night's  demonstration,  several  Irishmen  last 


Appendix  III  289 

night  vented  their  disapproval  of  The  Playboy  of  the 
Western  World  which  had  its  second  production  by 
Irish  Players  at  the  Adelphi  Theatre. 

They  started  by  coughing,  and  they  caused  the 
player-folk  to  become  slightly  nervous.  They  next 
essayed  hissing,  and  cries  of  "shame,"  and  finally  one 
of  their  number  rose  to  his  feet  in  a  formal  protest. 

Plain-clothes  men  throughout  the  house  quelled  the 
slight  disturbance,  but  at  every  opportunity  another 
belligerent  broke  into  unruly  behaviour. 

The  disorder  approached  the  dignity  of  serious 
rioting  in  the  second  and  third  acts  of  the  piece,  and 
at  the  last  a  man  from  Connemara  rose  in  the  body 
of  the  house,  whipped  a  speech  from  his  coat  pocket, 
and  proceeded  to  interrupt  the  players  with  a  harangue 
against  the  morality  of  the  play. 

His  philippics  were  short-lived.  Sixteen  cops  in 
plain  clothes  reached  him  at  the  same  time,  and  the 
red  man  from  Connemara  disappeared,  while  the  play 
was  being  brought  to  a  close .... 

Extra  precautions  were  taken  by  the  police  to  pre- 
serve order  at  last  night's  performance.  The  lights 
in  the  back  of  the  house  were  not  turned  down  at  any 
time  except  the  first  few  minutes  of  the  one-act  play 
Kathleen  ni  Houlihan  which  was  the  curtain-raiser 
to  the  longer  piece. 

Evidence  that  there  would  be  trouble  later  in  the 
evening  was  plain.  Nearly  the  whole  rear  part  of  the 
house  downstairs  was  filled  with  Irishmen. 

As  the  little  poetic  vision  of  the  author  unrolled 
itself  and  the  enthusiastic  and  for  the  most  part 

19 


290  Our  Irish  Theatre 

cultured  audience  was  steeping  itself  in  the  lyric  beauty 
of  the  lines,  two  whole  rows  of  the  auditors  were  seized 
with  a  desire  to  cough  or  clear  their  throats.  That 
caused  a  momentary  lull  in  the  play. 

Up  in  the  top  gallery  a  thin  but  insistent  ventri- 
loquist piped,  "This  is  rotten!"  Cries  of  "Hush!" 
quieted  the  interrupter. 

In  the  first  act  of  The  Playboy  where  the  bulk  of  the 
disturbance  occurred  Monday  night,  no  expression 
of  opinion  was  made.  But  just  as  every  one  was 
settling  down  to  enjoy  the  play,  confident  no  more 
interruptions  would  occur,  the  trouble  began. 

One  of  the  clan  downstairs  cried  out  his  disap- 
probation. The  lights  were  turned  on  full  tilt,  and 
policemen  in  plain  clothes  sprang  up  from  every 
quarter  of  the  house.  Women  left  their  seats  in  fear. 
A  misguided  youth  near  the  orchestra  threw  his  pro- 
gramme, doubled  into  a  ball,  at  Miss  Magee.  He 
was  promptly  arrested. 

The  play  was  stopped  for  fully  five  minutes  until 
all  the  men  who  showed  signs  of  making  trouble  were 
evicted.  A  number  of  them  laid  low,  however,  and 
bobbed  up  now  and  again,  whenever  they  wanted  to. 
It  kept  the  cops  busy  hustling  them  out  of  the  doors. 
Superintendent  Taylor  and  Captain  of  the  Detectives 
Souder  were  in  charge  of  the  evictions  and  as  each 
man  was  taken  out  two  detectives  were  sent  with  him 
to  City  Hall  where  all  were  locked  in. 

The  climax  came  when  near  the  close  of  the  last  act 
the  man  from  Connaught  began  his  oratorical  flights, 
drowning  the  speeches  of  the  actors  on  the  stage. 


Appendix  III  291 

All  interest  then  centred  upon  the  little  knot  of 
stragglers  in  the  main  aisle  of  the  theatre  and  four 
more  Irishmen  were  escorted,  hatless  and  without 
overcoats,  to  the  street. 

As  the  men  were  arraigned  at  the  City  Hall,  Wil- 
liam A.  Gray,  counsel  for  the  offenders  at  Monday 
night's  riot,  appeared  for  them.  He  said  he  had  been 
sent  by  Joseph  McLaughlin,  a  saloon-keeper  and  vice- 
president  of  the  A.  0.  H.,  and  he  obtained  a  copy  of 
the  charges,  with  a  view  to  getting  the  men  out  on 
bail.  .  .  .  Mr.  Gray  said  he  intended  taking  the 
matter  before  the  courts  and  asking  for  an  injunction 
to  prohibit  further  productions  of  the  play.  He  said 
his  backer  was  Joseph  McGarrity,  a  wholesale  liquor 
dealer,  in  business  at  144  South  Third  Street,  who  was 
one  of  those  ejected  from  the  theatre  on  Monday  night. 

Headed  by  Joseph  McLaughlin,  a  delegation  of  seven 
prominent  members  of  the  Irish  societies  of  the  city 
waited  on  Mayor  Blankenburg  yesterday  with  a 
petition  asking  him  to  stop  the  production  of  John 
M.  Synge's  comedy  The  Playboy  of  the  Western  World 
on  the  ground  that  it  is  immoral. 

The  Mayor  heard  the  comments  of  the  Irishmen, 
but  with  great  good  humour  pointed  out  that  inas- 
much as  he  could  find  nothing  objectionable  in  the 
play,  he  could  not  promise  to  stop  the  production. 

He  informed  the  delegation  that  he  had  previously 
made  inquiries  of  the  mayors  of  New  York,  Boston, 
and  Providence,  where  the  play  had  been  shown,  and 
had  received  answers  which  plainly  indicated  it  was 
not  necessary  to  stop  the  play. 


292  Our  Irish  Theatre 

(Note  to  page  226) 
From  PHILADELPHIA  "  NORTH  AMERICAN  ' ' 

IRISH   PLAYERS  APPEAR   IN  A   "COURT   COMEDY";     NO 
DECISION 

ANSWER    CHARGE    OF    "IMMORALITY"    BROUGHT    BY   A 

LIQUOR    DEALER — "  PLAYBOY"     DEFENDED 

AND  ATTACKED   BY   WITNESSES 

January  20,  1912: — Second  only  in  point  of  order, 
not  in  worth,  was  the  unadvertised  comedy  partici- 
pated in  by  the  Irish  Players  yesterday  afternoon,  at 
a  matinee  performance  held  in  Judge  Carr's  room 
in  the  quarter  sessions  court. 

The  public  flocked  to  see,  and  stayed  to  witness, 
a  most  complete  vindication  of  Synge's  much  dis- 
cussed satirisation  of  the  Irish  character.  The  actors 
arrested  for  appearing  in  The  Playboy  of  the  West- 
ern World  kept,  however,  in  the  background,  while 
counsel  on  both  sides  engaged  in  lively  tilts  with  two 
members  of  the  clergy  and  the  judge  and  other  wit- 
nesses, furnishing  the  crowd  with  entertainment. 

Eleven  of  the  Irish  Players  who  were  held  in  $500 
bail  each  by  Magistrate  Carey,  at  a  hearing  in  his 
office  earlier  in  the  day,  threw  themselves  upon  the 
mercy  of  the  quarter  sessions  court,  to  obtain  a 
legal  decision  as  to  whether  their  play  violated  the 
McNichol  act  of  1911,  which  makes  it  a  misdemeanor 
to  present  "lascivious,  sacrilegious,  obscene  or  indecent 
plays."  The  hearing  before  the  court  was  brought 
about  by  a  habeas  corpus  proceeding. 


Appendix  III  293 

Although  no  decision  was  handed  down  after  the 
argument,  the  attitude  of  the  court  was  plainly  shown, 
by  the.  line  of  questions  put  to  various  witnesses. 
The  testimony  offered  by  Director  of  Public  Safety 
Porter,  who  was  called  by  the  commonwealth,  indicated 
that  no  fault  could  be  found  with  the  play.  Judge 
Carr  reserved  decision,  and  adjourned  court  until 
Monday. 

The  defendants  were  represented  by  Charles  Biddle, 
William  Redheffer,  Jr.,  Howard  H.  Yocum,  and  John 
Quinn,  of  New  York.  Directly  back  of  them,  in  the 
courtroom,  sat  Lady  Gregory,  Mrs.  Henry  La  Barre 
Jayne,  and  W.  W.  Bradford,  the  latter  representing 
Liebler  &  Co.,  managers  of  the  Irish  Players. 

SURPRISE  FOR   PROSECUTOR 

William  A.  Gray  represented  Joseph  McGarrity, 
the  liquor  dealer,  who  has  taken  principal  part  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  actors.  He  was  aided  at  times 
by  Assistant  District  Attorney  Fox  on  behalf  of  the 
commonwealth,  although  the  latter's  action  in  calling 
Director  Porter  to  give  testimony  caused  Mr.  Gray 
both  surprise  and  embarrassment,  inasmuch  as  Mr. 
Porter  said  there  was  nothing  in  the  piece  to  offend 
the  most  devout  and  reverent  of  women.  He  said 
he  had  attended  the  theatre  with  his  wife  and  that 
neither  of  them  was  "shocked";  on  the  contrary,  dis- 
tinctly pleased. 

Mr.  Gray  called  Joseph  McGarrity  to  the  stand. 
In  all  seriousness  and  sincerity  the  witness  testified 


294  Our  Irish  Theatre 

that,  in  his  opinion,  The  Playboy  was  a  wicked  piece 
and  that  he  thought  he  had  a  perfect  right  to  show 
his  disapproval  by  protesting.  He  was  questioned 
by  Judge  Carr  as  to  the  reason  why  he  did  not  leave 
the  theatre  before  he  was  ejected,  if  he  thought  the 
play  was  bad.  He  could  give  no  adequate  reply. 

Mr.  Gray  then  read  passages  from  the  book,  declar- 
ing that  it  had  been  expurgated  to  make  it  presentable 
on  the  American  stage.  Frederick  0' Donovan,  one 
of  the  company,  who  takes  the  part  of  the  Playboy, 
testified  that  productions  of  the  play  had  been  made 
in  Dublin,  Belfast,  Cork,  London,  Oxford,  Cambridge, 
Harrowgate,  Boston,  New  York,  New  Haven,  and 
Providence  without  causing  any  public  disturbance 
except  in  New  York,  and  without  any  criminal  pro- 
secution being  brought  anywhere. 

It  was  pointed  out  to  the  court  by  Mr.  Gray  that 
Pennsylvania  is  the  only  State  having  a  statute  pre- 
venting immoral  or  sacrilegious  plays  and  that  this 
was  of  so  recent  a  date  that  neither  side  could  argue 
that  other  plays  of  a  much  more  objectionable  nature 
than  this  had  been  permitted  without  hindrance. 

Mr.  Biddle  and  Mr.  Quinn  then  summed  up  their 
arguments,  in  which  the  court  concurred,  openly. 
The  New  York  lawyer  paid  a  tribute  to  Philadelphia 
concerning  the  testimony  of  Director  Porter.  He  said : 
"Philadelphia  ought  to  be  proud  of  the  manhood 
displayed  by  such  a  witness.  He  stood  before  this 
court  and  testified  that  he  and  his  wife  had  witnessed 
the  performance,  and  that  neither  was  displeased  by 
any  exhibition  of  immorality. 


Appendix  III  297 

and  also  look  into  the  character  of  the  play  before  he 
decided  upon  steps  to  take. 

MCINERNEY  LEADS  FIGHT 

Aid.  Michael  Mclnerney  led  the  movement  for  the 
council  order. 

"The  play  is  a  studied  sarcasm  on  the  Irish  race," 
asserted  Mr.  Mclnerney,  reading  from  a  typewritten 
sheet;  "it  points  no  moral,  and  it  teaches  no  lesson." 

"Press  agent!"  shouted  some  one. 

"No,  I  'm  not  the  press  agent,"  asserted  the  alder- 
man. "This  play  pictures  an  Irishman  a  coward, 
something  that  never  happened,  and  it  attacks  the 
Irishwoman.  There  are  no  Irishmen  connected  with 
the  company  in  any  way. " 

In  reply  to  a  question  whether  Lady  Gregory  was 
Irish,  Mclnerney  replied  he  had  not  met  "the  lady," 
and  then  added: 

"There's  a  difference  in  being  from  Ireland  and 
being  Irish.  There  are  lots  of  people  in  Ireland  that 
are  n't  Irish.  If  you  're  born  in  a  stable,  that  does  n't 
make  you  a  horse." 

Mr.  Pringle  stopped  unanimous  passage  of  the 
resolution. 

"While  I  am  not  Irish,"  he  said,  "I  believe  Aid. 
Mclnerney  knows  what  he  is  talking  about;  but  I 
do  not  know  enough  about  this  subject  to  vote  upon 
it  at  this  time." 

"Like  Aid.  Pringle,"  said  Aid.  Thomson,  "I  am 
not  sufficiently  informed,  and  I  shall  ask  to  be  excused 
from  voting." 


298  Our  Irish  Theatre 

GERMANS    STRONG   FOR  IRISH 

"Since  some  leading  Irish  organisations  have  chosen 
Germans  to  lead  them,"  said  Aid.  Henry  Utpatel, 
"I  feel  that  that  fact  alone  makes  them  a  great  race, 
and  I  shall  vote  with  Aid.  Mclnerney. " 

"Would  you  like  to  hear  from  the  Poles?"  asked 
Aid.  Frank  P.  Danisch. 

"That 's  all  right,"  said  Mclnerney,  "if  this  play 
is  presented  there  will  come  along  a  play  insulting 
the  Poles  or  some  other  race.  It  is  not  right  for 
Chicago  to  let  any  race  be  insulted. " 

The  order  was  then  adopted,  Aid.  Pringle  and 
Thomson  voting  in  the  negative. 

(Note  to  page  246) 
From  CHICAGO  "  RECORD-HERALD  " 

February  I,  1912: — Chicago's  City  Council  erred  in 
passing  an  order  directing  the  mayor  and  the  chief 
of  police  to  stop  the  production  The  Playboy  of  the 
Western  World  according  to  an  opinion  sent  to  Mayor 
Harrison  yesterday  by  William  H.  Sexton,  the  city's 
corporation  counsel. 

The  brief  was  prepared  by  William  Dillon,  brother 
of  John  Dillon,  the  Irish  nationalist  leader,  one  of 
Mr.  Sexton's  assistants.  It  held  that  the  counsel 
order  was  of  no  legal  effect,  although  the  mayor  could 
suppress  the  play  if  he  decided  that  it  was  immoral 
or  against  public  policy.  Mr.  Dillon  further  declared 
that  the  mayor  would  not  be  legally  right  in  prohibit- 
ing the  production. 


Appendix  III  299 

"I  read  three  pages  of  the  book,"  declared  Mayor 
Harrison,  "and  instead  of  finding  anything  immoral 
I  found  that  the  whole  thing  was  wonderfully  stupid. 
I  shall  abide  by  the  corporation's  opinion." 

Interview  for  NEW  YORK  "  EVENING  SUN  " 
GEORGE  BERNARD  SHAW  ON  THE   IRISH  PLAYERS 

"I  presume,  Mr.  Shaw,  you  have  heard  the  latest 
news  of  your  Blanco  Posnet  in  America  with  the  Irish 
Players?"  he  was  asked. 

" No.     Why?     Has  it  failed?"  Mr.  Shaw  answered. 

"Quite  the  contrary,"  he  was  assured. 

"Oh,  in  that  case  why  should  I  hear  about  it?" 
he  said.  "Success  is  the  usual  thing  with  my  plays; 
it  is  what  I  write  them  for.  I  only  hear  about  them 
when  something  goes  wrong." 

"But  are  you  not  interested  in  the  success  of  the 
Irish  Players?  Or  was  that  a  matter  of  course  too?" 

"By  no  means,"  Mr.  Shaw  answered.  "I  warned 
Lady  Gregory  that  America  was  an  extremely  danger- 
ous country  to  take  a  real  Irish  company  to. " 

"But  why?  Surely  America,  with  its  immense 
Irish  element 

"Rubbish!  There  are  not  half  a  dozen  real  Irish- 
men in  America  outside  that  company  of  actors!" 
he  exclaimed.  "You  don't  suppose  that  all  these 
Murphys  and  Doolans  and  Donovans  and  Farrells 
and  Caseys  and  O'Connells  who  call  themselves  by 
romantic  names  like  the  Clan-na-Gael  and  the  like  are 
Irishmen!  You  know  the  sort  of  people  I  mean. 
They  call  Ireland  the  Old  Country.  .  .  . 


300  Our  Irish  Theatre 

"  Shall  I  tell  you  what  they  did  in  Dublin  to  the 
Irish  Players?  There  was  a  very  great  Irish  dramatic 
poet,  who  died  young,  named  John  Synge — a  real 
Irish  name — just  the  sort  of  name  the  Clan-na-Gael 
never  think  of. 

"Well,  John  Synge  wrote  a  wonderful  play  called 
The  Playboy  of  the  Western  World,  which  is  now  a 
classic.  This  play  was  not  about  an  Irish  peculiarity, 
but  about  a  universal  weakness  of  mankind :  the  habit 
of  admiring  bold  scoundrels.  Most  of  the  heroes  of 
history  are  bold  scoundrels,  you  will  notice.  English 
and  American  boys  read  stories  about  Charles  Peace, 
the  burglar,  and  Ned  Kelly,  the  highwayman,  and 
even  about  Teddy  Roosevelt,  the  rough-rider.  The 
Playboy  is  a  young  man  who  brags  of  having  killed 
his  father,  and  is  made  almost  as  great  a  hero  as  if 
he  were  an  Italian  general  who  had  killed  several 
thousand  other  people's  fathers.  Synge  satirises 
this  like  another  Swift,  but  with  a  joyousness  and  a 
wild  wealth  of  poetic  imagery  that  Swift  never 
achieved.  Well,  sir,  if  you  please,  this  silly  Dublin 
Clan-na-Gael,  or  whatever  it  called  itself,  suddenly 
struck  out  the  brilliant  idea  that  to  satirise  the  follies 
of  humanity  is  to  insult  the  Irish  nation,  because  the 
Irish  nation  is,  in  fact,  the  human  race  and  has  no 
follies,  and  stands  there  pure  and  beautiful  and  saintly 
to  be  eternally  oppressed  by  England  and  collected 
for  by  the  Clan.  There  were  just  enough  of  them  to 
fill  the  Abbey  Street  Theatre  for  a  night  or  two  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  real  Irish  people,  who  simply  get  sick 
when  they  hear  this  sort  of  balderdash  talked  about 


Appendix  III  301 

Ireland.  Instead  of  listening  to  a  great  play  by  a 
great  Irishman  they  bawled  and  whistled  and  sang 
'God  Save  Ireland'  (not  without  reason,  by  the  way), 
and  prevented  themselves  from  hearing  a  word  of 
the  performance.  ..." 

"Do  you  think  there  will  be  trouble  with  the  Clan 
in  New  York?" 

"  I  think  there  may  be  trouble  anywhere  where  there 
are  men  who  have  lost  touch  with  Ireland  and  still 
keep  up  the  old  bragging  and  posing.  You  must  bear 
in  mind  that  Ireland  is  now  in  full  reaction  against 
them.  The  stage  Irishman  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
generous,  drunken,  thriftless,  with  a  joke  always  on 
his  lips  and  a  sentimental  tear  always  in  his  eye,  was 
highly  successful  as  a  borrower  of  money  from  English- 
men— both  in  Old  and  New  England — who  indulged 
and  despised  him  because  he  flattered  their  sense  of 
superiority.  But  the  real  Irishman  of  to-day  is  so 
ashamed  of  him  and  so  deeply  repentant  for  having 
ever  stooped  to  countenance  and  ape  him  in  the  dark- 
est days  of  the  Captivity  that  the  Irish  Players  have 
been  unable  to  find  a  single  play  by  a  young  writer  in 
which  Ireland  is  not  lashed  for  its  follies.  We  no 
longer  brazen  out  the  shame  of  our  subjection  by  idle 
boasting.  Even  in  Dublin,  that  city  of  tedious  and 
silly  derision  where  men  can  do  nothing  but  sneer,  they 
no  longer  sneer  at  other  nations.  In  a  modern  Irish 
play  the  hero  does  n't  sing  that  '  Ould  Ireland '  is 
his  country  and  his  name  it  is  Molloy;  he  pours  forth 
all  his  bitterness  on  it  like  the  prophets  of  old. 

"The  last  time  I  saw  an  Irish  play  in  Dublin,  the 


302  Our  Irish  Theatre 

line  on  which  the  hero  made  his  most  effective  exit 
was  'I  hate  Ireland.'  Even  in  the  plays  of  Lady 
Gregory,  penetrated  as  they  are  by  that  intense  love 
of  Ireland  which  is  unintelligible  to  the  many  drunken 
blackguards  with  Irish  names  who  make  their  nation- 
ality an  excuse  for  their  vices  and  their  worthlessness, 
there  is  no  flattery  of  the  Irish ;  she  writes  about  the 
Irish  as  Moliere  wrote  about  the  French,  having  a 
talent  curiously  like  Moliere. 

"In  the  plays  of  Mr.  Yeats  you  will  find  many 
Irish  heroes,  but  nothing  like  'the  broth  of  a  boy.' 
Now  you  can  imagine  the  effect  of  all  this  on  the 
American  pseudo-Irish,  who  are  still  exploiting  the 
old  stage  Ireland  for  all  it  is  worth,  and  defiantly 
singing:  'Who  fears  to  speak  of  '98?'  under  the  very 
nose  of  the  police — that  is,  the  New  York  police,  who 
are  mostly  Fenians.  Their  notion  of  patriotism  is  to 
listen  jealously  for  the  slightest  hint  that  Ireland  is 
not  the  home  of  every  virtue  and  the  martyr  of  every 
oppression,  and  thereupon  to  brawl  and  bully  or  to 
whine  and  protest,  according  to  their  popularity  with 
the  bystanders.  When  these  people  hear  a  little  real 
Irish  sentiment  from  the  Irish  Players  they  will  not 
know  where  they  are;  they  will  think  that  the  tour 
of  the  Irish  company  is  an  Orange  conspiracy  financed 
by  Mr.  Balfour. " 

"Have  you  seen  what  the  Central  Council  of  the. 
Irish  County  Association  of  Greater  Boston  says  about 
the  Irish  Players?" 

"Yes;  but  please  do  not  say  I  said  so;  it  would 
make  them  insufferably  conceited  to  know  that  their 


Appendix  III  3°3 

little  literary  effort  had  been  read  right  through  by 
me.  You  will  observe  that  they  begin  by  saying 
that  they  know  their  Ireland  as  children  know  their 
mother.  Not  a  very  happy  bit  of  rhetoric  that,  be- 
cause children  never  do  know  their  mothers;  they 
may  idolise  them  or  fear  them,  as  the  case  may  be, 
but  they  don't  know  them. 

"But  can  you  conceive  a  body  of  Englishmen  or 
Frenchmen  or  Germans  publishing  such  silly  stuff 
about  themselves  or  their  country?  If  they  said  such 
a  thing  in  Ireland  they  would  be  laughed  out  of  the 
country.  They  declare  that  they  are  either  Irish 
peasants  or  the  sons  of  Irish  peasants.  What  on  earth 
does  the  son  of  an  American  emigrant  know  about 
Ireland?  Fancy  the  emigrant  himself,  the  man  who 
has  left  Ireland  to  stew  in  its  own  juice,  talking  about 
feeling  toward  Ireland  as  children  feel  toward  their 
mother.  Of  course  a  good  many  children  do  leave 
their  mothers  to  starve ;  but  I  doubt  if  that  was  what 
they  meant.  No  doubt  they  are  peasants — a  name, 
by  the  way,  which  they  did  not  pick  up  in  Ireland, 
where  it  is  unknown — for  they  feel  toward  literature 
and  art  exactly  as  peasants  do  in  all  countries;  that 
is,  they  regard  them  as  departments  of  vice — of  what 
policemen  call  gayety.  .  .  . 

"Good  heavens!"  exclaimed  Bernard  Shaw,  waving 
a  cutting  from  the  Post  in  his  hand,  "see  how  they 
trot  out  all  the  old  rubbish.  '  Noble  and  impulsive, ' 
'generous,  harum-scarum,  lovable  characters,'  'gen- 
erosity, wit,  and  triumphant  true  love';  these  arc  the 
national  characteristics  they  modestly  claim  as  Irish- 


304  Our  Irish  Theatre 

men  who  know  Ireland  as  children  know  their 
mother.  ..." 

"May  I  ask  one  more  question,  Mr.  Shaw?  Who 
is  the  greatest  living  Irishman?" 

"Well,  there  are  such  a  lot  of  them.  Mr.  Yeats 
could  give  you  off-hand  the  names  of  six  men,  not 
including  himself  or  myself,  who  may  possibly  turn 
out  to  be  the  greatest  of  us  all ;  for  Ireland  since  she 
purified  her  soul  from  the  Clan-na-Gael  nonsense, 
is  producing  serious  men;  not  merely  Irishmen,  you 
understand — for  an  Irishman  is  only  a  parochial  man 
after  all — but  men  in  the  fullest  international  as  well 
as  national  sense — the  wide  human  sense." 

"There  is  an  impression  in  America,  Mr.  Shaw, 
that  you  regard  yourself  as  the  greatest  man  that  ever 
lived." 

"I  dare  say.  I  sometimes  think  so  myself  when 
the  others  are  doing  something  exceptionally  foolish. 
But  I  am  only  one  of  the  first  attempts  of  the  new 
Ireland.  She  will  do  better — probably  has  done  better 
already — though  the  product  is  not  yet  grown  up 
enough  to  be  interviewed.  Good  morning. " 

From  "  THE  GAELIC  AMERICAN  " 

WHAT  THE  IRISH  COUNTY  ASSOCIATIONS  OF  BOS- 
TON SAID  OF  BERNARD  SHAW 

January  13,  1912: — The  writer  of  such  fool  con- 
ceptions is  as  blind  as  an  eight-hour-old  puppy  to  the 
operation  of  all  spiritual  agencies  in  the  life  of  man. 
Shaw's  writings  bear  about  the  same  relation  to 


Appendix  III  305 

genuine  literature  as  Bryan  O 'Lynn's  extemporised 
timepiece,  a  scooped  out  turnip  with  a  cricket  within, 
does  to  the  Greenwich  Observatory .... 

Shaw  stumbles  along  the  bogs,  morasses,  and  sand 
dunes  of  literature,  without  a  terminal,  leading  the 
benighted  and  lost  wayfarers  still  farther  astray. 
His  unhappy  possession  of  infinite  egotism  and  his 
utter  lack  of  common  sense  make  of  him  a  rara  avis  in- 
deed, a  cross  between  a  peacock  and  a  gander.  .  .  . 

In  conclusion  let  us  say  before  we  again  notice  this 
Barnum  of  literature  he  must  produce  a  clean  bill  of 
sanity,  superscribed  by  some  reputable  alienist. 

20 


APPENDIX   IV 
IN  THE  EYES  OF  OUR  ENEMIES 

From  "AMERICA" 
THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  "  IRISH  "  PLAYERS 

November  4,  1911: — The  editors,  like  the  patriots 
of  the  Boyle  O'Reilly  Club  who  fdted  him  in  Boston, 
took  Mr.  Yeats  at  his  own  none  too  modest  estimation. 
The  United  Irish  Societies  of  this  city  denounced  The 
Playboy,  and  an  advanced  Gaelic  organ  exposed  its 
barbarities,  but  gave  a  clean  bill  of  health  to  Mr.  Yeats 
and  the  rest  of  his  programme.  Doubtless  they  also 
had  not  read  the  plays  they  approved.  Well,  we  have 
read  them.  We  found  several  among  them  more  vile, 
more  false,  and  far  more  dangerous  than  The  Playboy, 
the  'bestial  depravity'  of  which  carries  its  own  con- 
demnation; and  we  deliberately  pronounce  them  the 
most  malignant  travesty  of  Irish  character  and  of  all 
that  is  sacred  in  Catholic  life  that  has  come  out  of 
Ireland.  The  details,  which  are  even  more  shocking 
than  those  of  The  Playboy,  are  too  indecent  for 
citation,  but  the  persistent  mendacity  of  the  Yeats 
press  agency's  clever  conspiracy  of  puff  makes  it 

306 


Appendix  IV  307 

needful  to  give  our  readers  some  notion  of  their 
character. 

Of  Synge's  plays  only  Riders  to  the  Sea,  an  un- 
Irish  adaptation  to  Connacht  fishermen  of  Loti's 
Pecheurs  d'Islande,  is  fit  for  a  decent  audience.  None 
but  the  most  rabidly  anti-Catholic,  priest-hating 
bigots  could  enjoy  The  Tinkers1  Wedding.1  The  plot, 
which  involves  an  Irish  priest  in  companionship  with 
the  most  degraded  pagans  and  hinges  on  his  love 
of  gain,  may  not  be  even  outlined  by  a  self-respecting 
pen.  The  open  lewdness  and  foul  suggestiveness  of 
the  language  is  so  revolting,  the  picture  of  the  Irish 
priesthood,  drawn  by  this  parson's  son,  is  so  vile  and 
insulting,  and  the  mockery  of  the  Mass  and  sacraments 
so  blasphemous,  that  it  is  unthinkable  how  any  man 
of  healthy  mind  could  father  it  or  expect  an  audience 
to  welcome  it.  This  is  the  ' '  typical  Irish  play  "  which 
the  "Irish  Players"  have  presented  to  a  Boston 
audience. 

The  twain  are  kindred  spirits;  but  in  vileness  of 
caricature  and  bitterness  of  anti-Catholic  animus, 
even  Synge  must  yield  to  Yeats.  He  also  goes  to 
tinkers  for  his  types;  and  whereas  Synge  is  content 
with  three,  and  one  priest,  Yeats 's  Where  there  is 
Nothing1  glorifies  a  bevy  of  unbelieving  tinkers  and 
presents  in  contrast  a  dozen  vulgar-spoken  monks, 
who  utter  snatches  of  Latin  in  peasant  brogue,  while 
dancing  frantically  around  the  altar  of  God! 

1  Neither  The  Tinkers'  Wedding  nor  Where  there  is  Nothing  has 
ever  been  given  by  our  Company. — A.  G. 


3o8  Our  Irish  Theatre 

From  "THE  GAELIC  AMERICAN" 
YEATS'S  ANTI-IRISH  CAMPAIGN 

November  18,  1911: — The  anti-Irish  players  come 
to  New  York  on  Nov.  2Oth,  and  will  appear  first  in 
some  of  the  other  plays.  The  Playboy,  it  is  an- 
nounced, will  be  given  later,  but  the  date  has  not  yet 
been  given  out.  The  presentation  of  the  monstrosity 
is  a  challenge  to  the  Irish  people  of  New  York  which 
will  be  taken  up.  There  will  be  no  parleying  with 
theatre  managers,  or  appeals  to  Lady  Gregory's  sense 
of  decency.  The  Playboy  must  be  squelched,  as  the 
stage  Irishman  was  squelched,  and  a  lesson  taught  to 
Mr.  Yeats  and  his  fellow-agents  of  England  that  they 
will  remember  while  they  live. 

When  a  woman  chooses  to  put  herself  in  the  com- 
pany of  male  blackguards  she  has  no  right  to  appeal 
for  respect  for  her  sex. 

MRS.  MARY  F.  MCWHORTER,  NATIONAL  CHAIRMAN, 
L.  A.,  A.  O.  H.,  IRISH  HISTORY  COMMITTEE,  WRIT- 
ING IN  "  THE  NATIONAL  HIBERNIAN,"  1913 

When  it  was  announced  about  two  months  ago  that 
the  Abbey  players  would  appear  in  repertory  at  the 
Fine  Arts  Theatre,  in  the  city  of  Chicago,  I  made  up 
my  mind  to  witness  all  of  the  Abbey  output,  if  possible, 
and  see  if  they  were  as  black  as  some  painted  them, 
and  now  I  feel  I  have  earned  the  right  to  qualify  as  a 
critic. 

Having  seen  them  all,  I  have  this  to  say,  that,  with 


Appendix  IV  309 

one  or  two  exceptions,  they  are  the  sloppiest,  and  in 
most  cases  the  vilest,  and  the  most  character-assas- 
sinating things,  in  the  shape  of  plays  it  has  ever  been 
my  misfortune  to  see.  If,  as  has  been  often  stated, 
the  plays  were  written  with  the  intention  of  belittling 
the  Irish  race  and  the  ideals  and  traditions  of  that 
race,  the  playwrights  have  succeeded  as  far  as  they  in- 
tended, for  the  majority  of  the  plays  leave  us  nothing 
to  our  credit. 

Thinking  the  matter  over  now,  I  cannot  understand 
why  The  Playboy  was  picked  out  as  the  one  most 
dangerous  to  our  ideals.  True,  The  Playboy  is  bad 
and  very  bad,  but  it  is  so  glaringly  so,  it  defeats  its 
own  ends  by  causing  a  revulsion  of  feeling. 

There  are  other  plays  in  the  collection,  however,  that 
are  apparently  harmless;  comedies  that  will  cause 
you  to  laugh  heartily,  't  is  true,  but  in  the  middle  of 
the  laugh  you  stop  as  if  some  one  slapped  you  in  the 
face.  You  begin  to  see,  in  place  of  the  harmless  joke, 
an  insidious  dig  at  something  you  hold  sacred,  or,  if 
it  is  something  you  think  is  inspiring  and  patriotic, 
right  in  the  midst  of  the  thing  that  carries  you  away 
for  a  few  moments  on  the  wings  of  your  lofty  dreams 
and  inspirations  some  monster  of  mockery  will  intrude 
his  ugly  face,  and  again  the  doubt,  "Is  it  ridicule?" 
The  certainty  follows  the  doubt  quickly,  and  you 
know  it  is  ridicule,  and  immediately  you  are  possessed 
of  an  insane  desire  to  seek  out  Lady  Gregory  or  some 
one  else  connected  with  the  plays  and  then  and  there 
commit  murder.  That  is,  you  will,  if  you  have  the 
welfare  of  your  race  at  heart.  Of  course,  if  you  are 


310  Our  Irish  Theatre 

careless,  or  in  some  cases  ignorant  of  the  history  of 
Ireland,  or  unfamiliar  with  the  conditions  there,  you 
will  accept  the  teaching  of  the  Abbey  school,  and  say  to 
yourself,  "The  Irish  are  a  lazy,  crafty,  miserly,  insin- 
cere, irreligious  lot  after  all." 

In  The  Rising  of  the  Moon  our  patriotism  is 
attacked,  not  openly,  of  course,  but  by  innuendo. 
We  are  made  to  appear  everything  but  what  we  are. 
The  policy  of  "Let  well  enough  alone,"  is  the  key- 
note of  this  play,  bringing  out  the  avarice  and  self- 
ishness that,  according  to  the  Abbey  school,  is  a  part 
of  our  nature. 

It  has  often  been  said  by  our  enemies  that  to  have 
a  priest  in  the  family  is  to  be  considered  very  respect- 
able by  the  average  Irish  Catholic  family,  and  to  bring 
about  this  desired  result  we  are  willing  to  sell  our 
immortal  souls.  All  this,  not  from  motives  of  piety, 
but  to  be  considered  respectable. 

In  the  play  Maurice  Harte  this  is  brought  out 
very  forcibly.  The  family  sacrifices  everything  to 
keep  the  candidate  for  the  priesthood  in  college.  The 
candidate  has  no  vocation,  but  he  is  not  consulted  at 
all.  When  this  poor,  spineless  creature  sees  the 
members  of  the  family  have  set  their  hearts  upon  his 
becoming  a  priest  he  lets  matters  drift  till  the  day  set 
for  his  ordination,  and  then  we  behold  him  going  mad. 
All  very  far-fetched. 

We  do  admit  that  we  like  to  have  a  priest  in  the 
family — what  Irish  mother  but  will  cherish  this  hope 
in  her  bosom  for  at  least  one  of  her  sons,  or  that  one  of 
the  daughters  of  the  house  will  become  the  spouse 


Appendix  IV 

of  Christ?  Not,  however,  from  such  an  unworthy 
motive  as  to  be  considered  respectable,  but  from  the 
pure  motive  of  serving  Almighty  God. 

The  Workhouse  Ward  gives  you  nothing  more 
edifying  than  the  picture  of  two  hateful  old  men  snarl- 
ing at  each  other  in  a  truly  disgusting  manner. 

Coats  gives  the  picture  of  two  seedy,  down-at-elbows 
editors,  who,  while  apparently  the  best  of  friends, 
still  are  thinking  unutterable  things  of  each  other. 

The  Building  Fund  is  a  disgusting  display  of 
avarice  and  insincerity.  It  strikes  at  the  roots  of  all 
we  hold  sacred,  and  instead  of  being  sincere,  religious 
Catholics,  the  family  is  depicted  as  grasping,  miserly 
creatures,  who  have  no  real  love  for  the  Church. 
There  is  not  a  redeeming  feature  in  the  whole  play. 

Family  Failing,  to  my  notion,  is  the  worst  of 
the  output.  Family  Failing,  of  course,  is  idleness 
and  all  it  carries  with  it.  It  is  a  strong  witness  in 
favor  of  that  old  fallacy,  so  often  repeated  by  our 
enemies,  that  it  was  not  the  cruelty  of  English  laws 
that  sent  us  forth  wanderers,  but  our  lazy,  idle, 
shiftless  ways.  The  curtain  goes  down  after  the  last 
act  of  this  play  on  a  disgusting  spectacle  of  a  lazy 
uncle  snoring  asleep  on  one  side  of  the  stage,  and  his 
lazy  nephew  occupying  the  other  side,  snoring  also. 

Kathleen  ni  Houlihan  is  beautiful,  but  every  one 
knows  Yeats  wrote  this  before  he  became  a  pagan 
and  went  astray.  His  Countess  Cathleen,  written 
since  then,  is  a  weird  thing.1  One  can  see  he  strives 

1  The  first  performance  of  The  Countess  Cathleen  was  in  1899; 
Kathleen  ni  Houlihan  was  written  in  1902. 


312  Our  Irish  Theatre 

after  his  early  ideals,  but  it  is  a  failure,  for  who  can 
picture  a  sincere,  devout  Catholic  lady  calmly  selling 
her  soul  to  the  devil,  even  though  it  is  to  purchase  the 
souls  of  her  poor  dependents.  And  it  is  a  rather 
dangerous  lesson  it  teaches  to  the  weak  minded,  when 
the  angel  comes  to  console  the  weeping  peasantry 
after  the  countess  dies.  Supposedly  in  damnation,  he 
tells  them  she  is  saved,  because  of  the  good  intention 
she  had  in  selling  her  soul  to  Old  Nick. 

The  Magnanimous  Lover  presents  the  nasty  problem 
play.  Of"  course  our  humiliation  would  not  be  com- 
plete without  the  "problem  play."  And  the  words 
that  this  play  puts  in  the  mouth  of  the  Irish  peasant 
girl! 

My  blood  boiled  as  I  listened.  What  on  earth  do 
our  Irish  peasants  know  about  the  nasty  problems 
so  much  affected  by  certain  writers  of  to-day?  Ameri- 
can newspaper  correspondents  have  commented  from 
time  to  time  on  the  chastity  of  the  Irish  peasants,  and 
even  the  hostile  ones  have  marvelled  at  the  complete 
absence  of  immorality  among  them.  But  what  is 
that  to  the  Irish  National  (?)  dramatists? 

It  is  plain  to  be  seen  the  self-styled  Irish  writers 
affect  the  present-day  style  in  vogue  among  French 
writers.  We  have  seen  the  result  of  all  this  as  far  as 
France  is  concerned.  To-day  that  once  proud  nation 
is  in  a  pitiable  condition.  And  so  the  Abbey  crowd 
would  bring  about  the  same  undesirable  conditions  in 
Ireland  if  they  could.  By  clever  innuendo  they  would 
take  all  the  splendid  ideals  and  noble  traditions  away 
from  the  Irish  and  leave  them  with  nothing  high  or 


Appendix  IV  313 

holy  to  cling  to.  But  the  Abbey  butchers  will  not 
succeed.  They  are  reckoning  without  their  host. 
The  Irish  character  is  too  strong  and  too  noble  to  be 
slain  by  such  unworthy  methods. 

The  plays  taken  as  a  whole  have  no  literary  merit. 
The  backers  of  the  plays  preach  about  Art  with  a 
capital  A,  but  they  have  no  artistic  merit,  for  art  is 
truth,  and  the  plays  are  not  true.  The  great  majority 
of  the  plays  are  made  up  of  nothing  more  than  a  lot 
of  "handy  gab. "  You  can  hear  the  same  any  day,  in 
any  large  city  in  Ireland,  indulged  in  by  a  lot  of 
"pot  boys,"  or  "corner  boys, "  as  they  are  sometimes 
called.  (May  I  be  permitted  to  use  the  American 
vulgarism,  "can-rusher,"  to  illustrate  what  is  meant 
by  "corner  boy?")  Nor  is  the  conversation  much 
more  edifying  than  would  be  indulged  in  by  those 
doubtful  denizens.  .  .  . 

With  this  dangerous  enemy  striking  at  the  very 
strands  of  our  life  and  from  such  a  dangerous  source, 
the  necessity  is  greater  than  ever  for  the  men  and 
women  of  our  beloved  society  to  be  earnest  and  honest 
in  their  efforts  for  the  revival  of  Irish  ideals.  Brothers 
and  Sisters  everywhere,  place  a  little  history  of  Ireland 
in  the  hand  of  each  little  boy  and  little  girl  of  the 
ancient  race,  and  all  the  Lady  Gregories  in  the  world 
will  not  be  able  to  destroy  an  atom  of  our  splendid 
heritage. 


APPENDIX  V 

From  "THE  OUTLOOK,"  December  16,  1911 
IN  THE  EYES  OF  OUR  FRIENDS 

THE  IRISH  THEATRE 
BY   THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

In  the '  Abbey  Theatre  Lady  Gregory  and  those 
associated  with  her — and  Americans  should  feel 
proud  of  the  fact  that  an  American  was  one  of  the 
first  to  give  her  encouragement  and  aid — have  not 
only  made  an  extraordinary  contribution  to  the  sum 
of  Irish  literary  and  artistic  achievement,  but  have 
done  more  for  the  drama  than  has  been  accomplished 
in  any  other  nation  of  recent  years.  England,  Aus- 
tralia South  Africa,  Hungary,  and  Germany  are 
all  now  seeking  to  profit  by  this  unique  achievement. 
The  Abbey  Theatre  is  one  of  the  healthiest  signs  of  the 
revival  of  the  ancient  Irish  spirit  which  has  been  so 
marked  a  feature  of  the  world's  progress  during  the 
present  generation ;  and,  like  every  healthy  movement 
of  the  kind,  it  has  been  thoroughly  national  and  has  de- 
veloped on  its  own  lines,  refusing  merely  to  copy  what 


Appendix  V  315 

has  been  outworn.  It  is  especially  noteworthy,  and  is  a 
proof  of  the  general  Irish  awakening,  that  this  vigorous 
expression  of  Irish  life,  so  honourable  to  the  Irish 
people,  should  represent  the  combined  work  of  so  many 
different  persons,  and  not  that  of  only  one  person, 
whose  activity  might  be  merely  sporadic  and  fortui- 
tous. Incidentally  Lady  Gregory  teaches  a  lesson  to  us 
Americans,  if  we  only  have  the  wit  to  learn  it.  The 
Irish  plays  are  of  such  importance  because  they  spring 
from  the  soil  and  deal  with  Irish  things,  the  familiar 
home  things  which  the  writers  really  knew.  They 
are  not  English  or  French ;  they  are  Irish.  Inexactly 
the  same  way,  any  work  of  the  kind  done  here,  which 
is  really  worth  doing,  will  be  done  by  Americans  who 
deal  with  the  American  life  with  which  they  are  famil- 
iar; and  the  American  who  works  abroad  as  a  make- 
believe  Englishman  or  Frenchman  or  German — or 
Irishman — will  never  add  to  the  sum  of  first-class 
achievement.  This  will  not  lessen  the  broad  human 
element  in  the  work;  it  will  increase  it.  These  Irish 
plays  appeal  now  to  all  mankind  as  they  would  never 
appeal  if  they  had  attempted  to  be  flaccidly  "cos- 
mopolitan"; they  are  vital  and  human,  and  therefore 
appeal  to  all  humanity,  just  because  those  who  wrote 
them  wrote  from  the  heart  about  their  own  people  and 
their  own  feelings,  their  own  good  and  bad  traits, 
their  own  vital  national  interests  and  traditions  and 
history.  Tolstoy  wrote  for  mankind;  but  he  wrote 
as  a  Russian  about  Russians,  and  if  he  had  not  done 
so  he  would  have  accomplished  nothing.  Our 
American  writers,  artists,  dramatists,  must  all  learn 


316  Our  Irish  Theatre 

the  same  lesson  until  it  becomes  instinctive  with  them, 
and  with  the  American  public.  The  right  feeling 
can  be  manifested  in  big  things  as  well  as  in  little,  and 
it  must  become  part  of  our  inmost  National  life  before 
we  can  add  materially  to  the  sum  of  world  achieve- 
ment. When  that  day  comes,  we  shall  understand 
why  a  huge  ornate  Italian  villa  or  French  chateau  or 
make-believe  castle,  or,  in  short,  any  mere  inappro- 
priate copy  of  some  building  somewhere  else,  is  a 
ridiculous  feature  in  an  American  landscape,  whereas 
many  American  farm-houses,  and  some  American 
big  houses,  fit  into  the  landscape  and  add  to  it;  we 
shall  use  statues  of  such  a  typical  American  beast  as 
the  bison — which  peculiarly  lends  itself  to  the  purpose 
— to  flank  the  approach  to  a  building  like  the  New 
York  Library,  instead  of  placing  there,  in  the  worst 
possible  taste,  a  couple  of  lions  which  suggest  a  carica- 
ture of  Trafalgar  Square ;  we  shall  understand  what  a 
great  artist  like  Saint-Gaudens  did  for  our  coinage, 
and  why  he  gave  to  the  head  of  the  American  Liberty 
the  noble  and  decorative  eagle  plume  head-dress  of  an 
American  horse-Indian,  instead  of  adopting,  in  servile 
style,  the  conventional  and  utterly  inappropriate 
Phrygian  cap. 

MARY  BOYLE  O'REILLY  IN  THE  BOSTON  "  SUNDAY  POST  " 

October  8,  1911; — In  two  shorts  weeks  the  Irish 
Players  have  done  great  and  lasting  service  to  every 
lover  of  Synge's  Irish  in  Boston;  a  service  long  to  be 
held  in  grateful  memory,  a  creative  force  of  other  good 


Appendix  V  317 

to  come.  Very  gravely  and  conscientiously,  Lady 
Gregory  and  Mr.  William  Butler  Yeats  have  trained 
their  players  to  interpret  to  the  children  of  Irish  emi- 
grants the  brave  and  beautiful  and  touching  memories 
which,  through  the  ignorance  of  the  second  generation, 
have  ceased  to  be  cause  for  gratitude  or  pride. 

Not  this  alone:  by  their  fine  art,  the  players  have 
dealt  a  death  blow  to  the  coarse  and  stupid  burlesque 
of  the  traditional  stage  Irishman,  who  has,  for  years, 
outraged  every  man  and  woman  of  Celtic  ancestry 
by  gorilla-like  buffoonery  and  grotesque  attempts  at 
brogue. 

.  .  .  Boston  owes  Lady  Gregory  and  Mr.  Yeats 
and  their  company  not  only  grateful  thanks,  but  a 
very  humble  apology. 

From  "THE  FREEMAN'S  JOURNAL" 

October  26,  1912: — It  is  time  the  Dublin  public 
pulled  itself  together  and  began  to  take  a  pride  in  its 
National  Theatre,  this  theatre  which  has  produced  in 
a  few  years  more  than  a  hundred  plays  and  a  company 
of  players  recognised  as  true  artists,  not  only  by  their 
fellow-countrymen,  but  by  the  critics  of  England  and 
America.  The  Abbey  Theatre  has  made  it  possible 
for  a  writer  living  in  Ireland  and  writing  on  Irish 
subjects  to  win  a  position  of  equal  dignity  with  his 
fellow-artist  in  London  or  Paris ;  it  has  made  it  possible 
for  an  Irish  man  or  woman  with  acting  ability  to  play 
in  the  plays  of  their  fellow-countrymen,  and  to  earn  a 
decent  living  and  win  a  position  of  equal  respect  with 
any  English  or  Continental  actor. 


3i8  Our  Irish  Theatre 

From  NEW  YORK  "JOURNAL" 

December  18,  1911: — The  hysterics  and  rowdyism 
that  attended  the  opening  of  the  Irish  plays  in  New 
York  having  died  away,  listen  to  a  few  facts  concern- 
ing the  extremely  interesting  and  valuable  work  of 
Lady  Gregory  and  her  associates,  the  Irish  playwrights 
and  actors. 

Some  of  those  entirely  ignorant  of  that  which  they 
discussed  thought  that  the  Irish  players  were  wilfully 
irreligious,  and  others  equally  ignorant  thought  that 
they  were  weakly  lacking  in  Irish  patriotism. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Irish  playwrights  and  actors 
.  .  .  are  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  Irish  spirit 
and  are  trying  as  welt  as  they  can  to  present  certain 
Irish  conditions  and  characters  as  they  are,  utilising 
literature  and  the  drama  as  mediums. 

.  .  .  It  was  thought  by  some  good  people 
who  had  not  seen  the  plays  that  they  were  irre- 
ligious in  character  and  showed  lack  of  respect 
especially  for  the  Catholic  faith.  But  this  is  not 
true. 

In  the  play  called  Mixed  Marriage  all  the  bigotry 
and  religious  stupidity  is  shown  by  the  old  Protestant 
father.  The  unselfishness,  real  patriotism,  courage, 
and  broad-minded  humanity  in  this  play  are  the 
possessions  of  the  Catholics — as  is,  indeed,  usually 
the  case  in  Ireland. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  real  merit  wins  and 
overcomes  ignorant  prejudice. 

Many  of  the  very  men  that  hissed  and  hooted  at 


Appendix  V  319 

the  Irish  plays  on  the  first  night  without  listening  to 
them  now  attend  the  performances  regularly. 

Those  that  enjoy  most  thoroughly  the  wonderful 
wit  and  pathos  of  the  Irish  race,  as  shown  in  these 
plays,  are  those  Irish  men  and  women. 

Sara  Allgood,  as  the  old  patient  wife  and  mother  in 
Mixed  Marriage,  is  a  perfect  picture  of  the  woman- 
hood that  has  created  Ireland. 

Lady  Gregory  and  her  friends  have  rendered  a  real 
service  to  this  country  and  to  Ireland  by  bringing  the 
plays  here. 

ANONYMOUS  IN  CHICAGO  "  DAILY  TRIBUNE  " 
February,  1912 

TO  LADY  GREGORY 

Long  be  it  e'er  to  its  last  anchorage 
Thy  oaken  keel,  O  "  Fighting  Temeraire," 
Shall  forth  beyond  the  busy  harbour  fare. 
Still  mayest  thou  the  battle  royal  wage 
To  show  a  people  to  itself;  to  gauge 
The  depth  and  quality  peculiar  there; 
Of  its  humanity  to  catch  the  air 
And  croon  its  plaintiveness  upon  the  stage. 

Nay,  great  and  simple  seer  of  Erin's  seers, 
How  we  rejoice  that  thou  wouldst  not  remain 
Beside  thy  hearth,  bemoaning  useless  years, 
But  hear'st  with  inner  ear  the  rhythmic  strain 
Of  Ireland's  mystic  overburdened  heart 
Nor  didst  refuse  to  play  thy  noble  part! 


Irish  Folk-History  Plays 

By 
LADY  GREGORY 

First  Series.     The  Tragedies 
CRANIA  KINCORA  DERVORGILLA 

Second  Series.     The   Tragic   Comedies 

THE  CANAVANS  THE  WHITE  COCKADE 

THE  DELIVERER 
2  vots.    Each,  $l.SO  net.    By  mail,  $1.65 

Lady  Gregory  has  preferred  going  for  her  material  to  the  tra- 
ditional folk-history  rather  than  to  the  authorized  printed  versions, 
and  she  has  been  able,  in  so  doing,  to  make  her  plays  more  living. 
One  of  these,  K^incora,  telling  of  Brian  Boru,  who  reigned  in  the 
year  1000,  evoked  such  keen  local  interest  that  an  old  farmer 
travelled  from  the  neighborhood  of  Kincora  to  see  it  acted  in 
Dublin. 

The  story  of  Crania,  on  which  Lady  Gregory  has  founded  one 
of  these  plays,  was  taken  entirely  from  tradition.  Grania  was  a 
beautiful  young  woman  and  was  to  have  been  married  to  Finn,  the 
great  leader  of  the  Fenians;  but  before  the  marriage,  she  went 
away  from  the  bridegroom  with  his  handsome  young  kinsman, 
Diarmuid.  After  many  years,  when  Diarmuid  had  died  (and  Finn 
had  a  hand  in  his  death),  she  went  back  to  Finn  and  became  his 
queen. 

Another  of  Lady  Gregory's  plays,  The  Canavanx  dealt  with 
the  stormy  times  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  whose  memory  is  a  horror  in 
Ireland  second  only  to  that  of  Cromwell. 

The  White  Cockade  is  founded  on  a  tradition  of  King  James 
having  escaped  from  Ireland  after  the  battle  of  the  Boyne  in  a  wine 
barrel. 

The  choice  of  folk  history  rather  than  written  history  gives  a 
freshness  of  treatment  and  elasticity  of  material  which  made  the 
late  J.  M.  Synge  say  that  "  Lady  Gregory's  method  had  brought 
back  the  possibility  of  writing  historic  plays." 

All  these  plays,  except  Grania,  which  has  not  yet  been  staged, 
have  been  very  successfully  performed  in  Ireland.  They  are  written 
in  the  dialect  of  Kiltartan,  which  had  already  become  familiar  to 
readers  of  Lady  Gregory's  books. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 


Irish  Folk-History  Plays 

By 
LADY  GREGORY 


Lady  Gregory's  plays  "  never  fail  to  do  the  one  thing 
which  we  all  demand  from  a  play,  which  is  not,  as  stupid 
people  say,  to  amuse  us  (though  Lady  Gregory's  plays 
are  extremely  amusing) ,  but  to  take  us  out  of  ourselves 
and  out  of  London  and  out  of  the  stuffy  theater  while  we 
are  listening  to  them." — George  Bernard  Shaw. 

"Among  the  three  great  exponents  of  the  modern  Celtic 
movement  in  Ireland,  Lady  Gregory  holds  an  unusual 
place.  It  is  she  from  whom  came  the  chief  historical  im- 
pulse which  resulted  in  the  re-creation  for  the  present 
generation  of  the  elemental  poetry  of  early  Ireland,  its 
wild  disorders,  its  loves  and  hates — all  the  passionate 
light  and  shadow  of  that  fierce  and  splendid  race. 
.  .  .  Should  be  read  by  all  those  who  are  interested  in 
this  most  unusual  literary  movement  of  modern  times. 
Indeed  they  furnish  a  necessary  complement  to  the  over- 
fanciful  pictures  drawn  by  Mr.  Yeats  of  the  dim  morning 
of  Celtic  Song." — Springfield  Republican. 

"Lady  Gregory  has  kept  alive  the  tradition  of  Ireland 
as  a  laughing  country.  She  surpasses  the  others  in  the 
quality  of  her  comedy,  however,  not  that  she  is  more 
comic,  but  that  she  is  more  comprehensively  true  to  life. 
Lady  Gregory  has  gone  to  reality  as  to  a  cave  of  treasure. 
She  is  one  of  the  discoverers  of  Ireland.  Her  genius,  like 
Synge's,  seems  to  have  opened  its  eyes  one  day  and  seen 
spread  below  it  the  immense  sea  of  Irish  common  speech, 
with  its  color,  its  laughter,  and  its  music." — Nation. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 


New  Comedies 

By 
LADY  GREGORY 

The    Bogie    Men — The    Full    Moon — Goats 
Darner's  Gold — McDonough's  Wife 

8°,    With  Portrait  in  Photogravure,    $1,50  net.    By  mail,  SL65 

The  plays  have  been  acted  with  great  success 
by  the  Abbey  Company,  and  have  been  highly 
extolled  by  appreciative  audiences  and  an  en- 
thusiastic press.  They  are  distinguished  by  a 
humor  of  unchallenged  originality. 

One  of  the  plays  in  the  collection,  "Coats," 
depends  for  its  plot  upon  the  rivalry  of  two 
editors,  each  of  whom  has  written  an  obituary 
notice  of  the  other.  The  dialogue  is  full  of 
crisp  humor.  "McDonough's  Wife,"  another 
drama  that  appears  in  the  volume,  is  based  on  a 
legend,  and  explains  how  a  whole  town  rendered 
honor  against  its  will.  "  The  Bogie  Men  "  has  as 
its  underlying  situation  an  amusing  misunder- 
standing of  two  chimney-sweeps.  The  wit  and 
absurdity  of  the  dialogue  are  in  Lady  Gregory's 
best  vein.  "  Darner's  Gold  "  contains  the  story 
of  a  miser  beset  by  his  gold-hungry  relations. 
Their  hopes  and  plans  are  upset  by  one  they  had 
believed  to  be  of  the  simple  of  the  world,  but 
who  confounds  the  Wisdom  of  the  Wise.  "  The 
Full  Moon  "  presents  a  little  comedy  enacted  on 
an  Irish  railway  station.  It  is  characterized  by 
humor  of  an  original  and  delightful  character 
and  repartee  that  is  distinctly  clever. 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 


Irish  Plays 

By 
LADY  GREGORY 


Lady  Gregory's  name  has  become  a  house- 
hold word  in  America  and  her  works  should 
occupy  an  exclusive  niche  in  every  library.  Mr. 
George  Bernard  Shaw,  in  a  recently  published 
interview,  said  Lady  Gregory  "  is  the  greatest 
living  Irishwoman.  .  .  .  Even  in  the  plays  of 
Lady  Gregory,  penetrated  as  they  are  by  that 
intense  love  of  Ireland  which  is  unintelligible 
to  the  many  drunken  blackguards  with  Irish 
names  who  make  their  nationality  an  excuse 
for  their  vices  and  their  worthlessness,  there 
is  no  flattery  of  the  Irish;  she  writes  about 
the  Irish  as  Moliere  wrote  about  the  French, 
having  a  talent  curiously  like  Moliere." 

"  The  witchery  of  Yeats,  the  vivid  imagination 
of  Synge,  the  amusing  literalism  mixed  with  the 
pronounced  romance  of  their  imitators,  have 
their  place  and  have  been  given  their  praise 
without  stint.  But  none  of  these  can  compete 
with  Lady  Gregory  for  the  quality  of  uni- 
versality. The  best  beauty  in  Lady  Gregory's 
art  is  its  spontaneity.  It  is  never  forced.  .  .  . 
She  has  read  and  dreamed  and  studied,  and 
slept  and  wakened  and  worked,  and  the  great 
ideas  that  have  come  to  her  have  been  nourished 
and  trained  till  they  have  grown  to  be  of  great 
stature." — Chicago  Tribune. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 


The  Nun  of  Kent 


Dramas  of  Importance 

Plays 

The  Sliver  Box— Joy— Strife 
By  John  Galsworthy 

Author  of  "  The  Country  House,"  etc. 
Crown  8vo.     $  1 .33  net 

"  By  common  consent,  London  has  witnessed  this  week 
a  play  of  serious  importance,  not  approached  by  any  other 
book  or  drama  of  the  season,  John  Galsworthy's  '  The 
Strife.'  It  is  regarded  not  merely  as  a  remarkable  social 
document  of  significance,  but  as  a  creation  which,  while  of 
the  most  modern  realism,  is  yet  classic  in  its  pronounced 
art  and  exalted  philosophy.  The  play  shows  the  types  of 
the  strongest  men  as  victims  of  comical  events  and  of 
weaker  men.  It  will  be  produced  in  America,  where,  on 
account  of  its  realistic  treatment  of  the  subject  of  labor 
union,  it  is  sure  to  be  a  sensation." — Special  cable  dispatch 
to  N.  Y.  Times. 

A 

Drama 

By  Grace  Denio  Litchfield 

Author  of  "Baldur  the  Beautiful,"  etc. 
Crown  8vo .     $  1  .OO  net 

41  In  this  drama  the  pur:,  essentials  of  dramatic  writing 
are  rarely  blended.  .  .  .  The  foundation  for  the  stirring 
play  is  a  pathetic  episode  given  in  Froude's  Henry  VIII. . . . 

"  The  lines  of  the  poem,  while  full  of  thought,  are  also 
characterized  by  fervor  and  beauty.  The  strength  of  the 
play  is  centred  upon  a  few  characters.  .  .  ^»  '  The  Nun 
of  Kent '  may  be  described  as  a  fascinating  dramatic 
story." — Baltimore  News. 

Yzdra 

A  Tragedy  In  Three  Acts 

By  Louis  V.  Ledoux 

Crown  8vo.      Cloth.    "$1.23  net 

"  There  are  both  grace  and  strength  in  this  drama  and 
it  also  possesses  the  movement  and  spirit  needed  for  pres- 
entation upon  the  stage.  Some  of  the  figures  used  are 
striking  and  beautiful,  quite  free  from  excess,  and  some- 
times almost  austere  in  their  restraint.  The  characters 
are  clearly  individualized  and  a  just  balance  is  preserved 
in  the  action." — The  Outlook,  New  York. 

New  York    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons    London 


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